Remembering Africa’s Tourism Expert: Dr Carmen Nibigira

The Tourism industry in Africa was thrown into mourning on Saturday, the 16th of November 2024 when the news of the passing away of Dr. Carmen Nibigira filtered in. To state it was just a shock will mean one is being disingenuous and diplomatic.

It was more than a shock. Personally, it left me dumbfounded for weeks. The only thing I could do was and still has been, to read comments, posts, articles and Whatsapp statuses of people who knew her personally and also Whatsapp statuses of people I didn’t know she had impacted; from colleagues to young people in the tourism sector in East Africa.

The tourism and hospitality industry in Africa was not itself in the middle of November 2024 as the sector mourned her untimely passing on November 16, 2024, in Nairobi, Kenya. A lot of people remembered her for her unparalleled contributions, especially her efforts to integrate and enhance tourism in East Africa.

Others remembered her indefatigable passion for empowering youth and promoting sustainable tourism and profitable sustainable tourism careers for those in the sector. This, I saw firsthand in 2022 in Namibia during a tourism conference as she navigated panel sessions moderating the panellists.

Varied tributes to Dr Carmen Nibigira ranged from her advocacy and passion about training young people in hospitality and capacity building in the hotel sector; to she being a staunch advocate for inter and intra-regional tourism and also her visionary approach to borderless travel in Africa.

At an early age, she had transversed several leadership roles and responsibilities and notable achievements too numerous to outline her but notably: Director General of the Burundi National Tourism Office; CEO of the East African Tourism Platform (2013–2016) where she spearheaded the creation of East Africa’s first single tourism visa, enabling seamless travel between Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.

The significance of the aforementioned is this: one of the reasons you are able to travel within Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda with one East African visa is largely due to Dr Cermen Nibigira.

Her professional career spanned two decades, with career roles in Switzerland, USA, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi where one of her trademarks was managing tour operations and hotels, bridging local traditions with global best practices.

She attended Lycée Vugizo in Burundi and St Peter’s High College in Gloucester in the UK. She obtained a BA in travel management from the University of Brighton UK in 2005 and a Masters in Art in tourism destination management from the University College of Birmingham, also in the UK.

She obtained her PhD in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management from Clemson University in South Carolina in 2019. When the UN Tourism Announced the Best Tourism Villages 2024: 55 Rural Communities Shaping the Future of Sustainable Travel, the organisation stated that applications in 2023 and 2024 were evaluated by an independent Advisory Board and paid tribute to Dr. Carmen Nibigira, Tourism and Hospitality Expert who was part of the Advisory Board for the 2023-2024 period.

With all she had achieved, there was no single pompous air or superiority complex about her. Not one. This I found out in Namibia in 2022. We had several conversations on East Africa, Nigeria, travel and life in general. And I learnt a valuable lifehack pertaining to travelling. I remember there was a puzzle I had been trying unfailingly to solve for a long time about East African idiosyncrasies; and during one of the session breaks at the tourism conference in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia; I brought it up and she dissected the puzzle in simple English comprehension.

You see, I have come to realise that a lot of people have PhDs but complicate the dissemination of knowledge with grandiloquent prolixus and grandiose analysis; thereby leaving you more discombobulated. It should not be so. A highly educated individual should be able to simplify complicated issues for a toddler to understand. Dr Carmen Nibigira was one of the few PhD holders who didn’t complicate the dissemination of critical knowledge.

We agreed to catch up in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda but for those who knew Dr Carmen Nibigira, getting her between the tail-end of 2022 was herculean. She was extremely busy as she commenced her new role as Lead for Tourism and Hospitality Management within the Mastercard Foundation’s Rwanda Programmes.

We finally caught up in January 2023 at Bourbon Coffee at the MTN Headquarters in Nyarutarama in Kigali. After discussing topics, Dr. C, as I called her, informed me, she wanted to run a blog discussing issues professional women encounter and have to navigate and not talk about. She kept saying she was now free and not burdened and could go back to her writing. Why the blog I asked, she responded by saying she noticed when she posted on her social media pages or via groups, women responded and concurred with her dissection of issues. She showed me some of her write-ups which were drafts and not yet in the public domain.

I read and marvelled at her vocabulary, precision and execution of the English language. I had to ask her where she learnt her command of the English language from. You see, there is a type of English usage only used by Anglophones in Africa, if they were born in the 30s to 60s and if they were taught before African countries began to have their independence. Now, that was the type of English she wrote. Also, you don’t find that type of English usage in Francophone Africa, except the user schooled in Anglophone Africa circa (30s-60s) or schooled in the United Kingdom and lived with elderly people. When Doctor Carmen informed me about her background and educational background and the fact that not only did, she school in the United Kingdom but her godparents were elderly people who lived on a large farmhouse in the hinterlands, it then, made perfect sense to me why her command of the English language was totally different. Her proposal and intention were for me to edit her drafts and run her blog. Several follow-ups and several responses from her indicated she was extremely busy and the project did not commence.

I remember my last encounters with her. I walked into Boho (an upscale restaurant in Kigali run by a Rwandan I first met in Lagos back in the day) and there she was at a long table with her mother, sisters and some close friends who flew in to celebrate her mother’s birthday (If my memory serves me right.) Doctor Carmen introduced me to everyone and I asked her if her mother understood English and I got an affirmative yes. Thereafter, I said what I had to say in my passable French and switched back to English.

Another encounter was at Hope Azeda’s Ubumuntu Arts Festival in July 2023 at the amphitheatre located at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Dr C was with her sons stepping out of the premises. Sighting each other, we spoke and she congratulated me on my engagement. I was a bit surprised and asked her how she knew. She simply said, she was informed by a reliable person. I shouldn’t have been surprised; it is Kigali. Kigali is a medium-sized city with no secrets.

Reading her drafts on that fateful day in the month of January 2023, I deduced a woman who was simply fearless and who had clarity about her purpose and also a beaming light to other women (professional women, childhood friends, women mentees, Burundian women group in Rwanda etc).

One quote which summarises Dr. Carmen Nibigira was made on Tuesday, September 21, 2021 during an online appearance on Vatel Rwanda’s webinar; she stated thus: “Have a vision and a purpose for your life. Work hard, work smart and don’t be afraid to fail. Give your best, all day every day and celebrate your wins. As you climb higher and higher, don’t forget to send the ladder down.”

Dr Nibigira truly lived fearlessly and she was authentic. May her gentle soul rest in peace and may God grant her entire family, friends and those who knew her the fortitude to bear this irreplaceable loss. Amen.

Aina, a Nigerian writer and global strategic communications consultant and founder of The Write Communications, is based in Kigali, Rwanda