Kigali Marriott Hotel holds a downtown block on KN 3 Avenue in Nyarugenge, minutes from the financial district, City Hall and several embassies. It opened in October 2016 and earns its place twice over: the night of arrival and the last night before the flight home. Staff and suppliers came largely from Rwandan women’s cooperatives, which shows in the coffee and in the baskets on the walls.
Nobody negotiates a taxi in a city they have not yet learned to read.
Guests tend to arrive after dark and leave before dawn, so Kigali falls into the one full day between. The Genocide Memorial in Gisozi is a ten to fifteen-minute drive, as are the Nyamirambo Women’s Centre walking routes and the studios at Inema Arts Centre. Nobody negotiates a taxi in a city they have not yet learned to read. The front desk arranges the cars and guides.
Rooms are large and quiet, and floor-to-ceiling glass frames the ridges and valleys the city is built across. Rwandan hand-weaving hangs against neutral walls, the bathrooms are finished in marble, and the higher floors, some with balconies, sit above the street noise. Beds are deep, which counts for a lot after twenty hours in transit.
The water is heated, which keeps it comfortable to swim in
Outside, the pool is a proper swimming pool rather than a token plunge, ringed with loungers and a smaller pool for the children. Kigali sits high enough that the evenings drop toward 15°C. The water is heated, which keeps it comfortable to swim in. Dinner is the buffet at Soko or wood-fired pizza and handmade pasta at Cucina, and breakfast runs to tropical fruit, pastries, hot bean soup and cassava cakes.
The Rwandan entrepreneur Hatari Sekoko and the Hong Kong-based investor Billy Cheung Yiu Tung formed a development company to build the hotel. The doors did not open until October 2016. By February 2018 the government had stepped in with temporary repayable assistance for the developer. Marriott International has managed the hotel throughout under a long-term agreement.
Young Rwandan women are recruited through the Akilah Institute for Women, some of them orphaned by the genocide. They train on the job at sister hotels in the Middle East, then return to supervisory roles in Kigali. A separate programme with Women for Women International brings others into entry-level posts. The baskets on the walls come from the Women for Women Opportunity Center, along with the honey and the cheese served here. Coffee at the Question Café is grown by female cooperatives working with the Relationship Coffee Institute.
Marriott International has managed the hotel throughout under a long-term agreement
Volcanoes National Park, for gorilla and golden monkey trekking, lies northwest by road. Akagera National Park and its savanna game viewing is about two and a half hours east. Neither is a casual morning’s drive, which is much of why Rwandan itineraries begin and end here. The concierge arranges private cars and guides, the airport is roughly fifteen to twenty minutes away, and checkout moves fast enough for an early domestic charter connecting to the gorilla parks.
Inside, the lobby rises with marble underfoot, a chandelier overhead and Rwandan weaving on the walls. By early evening the Iriba terrace fills with business travellers, diplomats and people back from Akagera comparing notes. The Saray Spa handles the aftermath of trekking, with massage, a steam room and a foot bath, and a fitness centre runs daily classes. Nyandungu Eco-Park is a restored urban wetland threaded with walking and cycling trails. It makes an easy half-day away from the hotel.
accommodation
There are 254 rooms and suites, from Deluxe rooms of around 36 square metres to Club rooms with lounge access and larger Junior and Executive Suites. The palette is neutral, warmed with wood accents, the bathrooms marble, the glass floor to ceiling. Higher floors carry private balconies with city and hill views.
activities
On site there is an outdoor pool, the Saray Spa and a fitness centre with daily classes. The concierge arranges private guides for the Genocide Memorial, Nyamirambo Women's Centre walking tours, Inema Arts Centre and Nyandungu Eco-Park, and can organise gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park and game drives in Akagera National Park, both conducted under park regulations rather than from the hotel itself.
conservation
The Akilah Institute for Women recruits and trains staff, several of whom move into supervisory roles after placements at Marriott properties in the Middle East. Women for Women International brings others into entry-level positions. Baskets, honey and cheese served at the hotel come from the Women for Women Opportunity Center, and the hotel supports Solid'Africa, which provides meals to patients in Kigali's public hospitals.
Get in touch and let’s start the conversation. An initial consultation helps us understand what you’re looking for, whether that’s specific experiences, luxury touches, or marking a special occasion, and from there we’ll guide you through what’s possible so you can decide if we’re the right fit.
Kigali International is about eleven kilometres away, fifteen to thirty minutes depending on traffic, and the hotel offers a paid pre-booked transfer. We normally arrange it so somebody is waiting when you clear customs.
Kigali is where nearly every Rwandan trip starts and ends, and the airport is unusually quick to get through, so a downtown hotel is less of a compromise here than it would be in most capitals.
Kigali stands at around 1,500 metres and the cooler air keeps mosquitoes scarcer than in the warm lowlands to the east. Even so, both TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, and the CDC treat the whole of Rwanda as a malaria risk area and recommend antimalarial tablets wherever you stay. No part of Rwanda is exempt.
We do not make medical recommendations, and we would not want to. We arrange travel; we are not doctors. Which tablets suit you, how they sit with anything else you take, and what is right for a child are questions for your own doctor or a travel clinic. On the practical part, dusk is the hour that matters, so long sleeves, long trousers and repellent are worth the packing space.
Yes, children are welcome, and those of twelve and over are generally charged as adults.
A city hotel with a pool is more useful with children than it sounds on a Rwandan trip, because the drives between Kigali, Volcanoes and Lake Kivu are long. A night here at each end gives everyone a swim and a proper sleep either side of the flying.
More than most people expect. The Kigali Genocide Memorial is the one thing we would always build in, and it needs unhurried time rather than an hour squeezed before a flight. Beyond it there is a genuinely good coffee scene, the Nyamirambo women's centre walking tour, and Rwandan art and craft cooperatives.
The hotel itself sources its coffee, baskets and management trainees through Rwandan women's cooperatives, so a little of that story is already in the building. We can arrange guiding for any of it.
The altitude keeps the city mild the whole year, so the decision rests on rain rather than temperature. The long dry season from June to mid-September brings the steadiest weather, with July the driest month, and the shorter dry spell from mid-December to February is a good second window.
April is the wettest month, and March, May, October and November carry the other rains. If the city is bookending a gorilla itinerary, the dry months help twice over, since they also give the firmest trails in the parks.
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our approach
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Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape something that is considered, personal, and expertly delivered.
