By Finbarr O'Reilly
Kigali - Better known for a genocide 10 years ago than any delights it has to offer tourists, Rwanda, the country once dubbed the Switzerland of Africa, wants a radical image change to tempt more foreign nationals.
The tiny Central African nation has a wealth of natural wonders - from mountain gorillas living on the smouldering volcanoes of the north to ancient forests, picturesque lakes and game-filled national parks.
But the government knows that to many people the word Rwanda is synonymous with the 1994 genocide when extremists from the ethnic Hutu majority massacred an estimated 800 000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates during three months of bloodshed.
"We definitely have a huge image problem," Rosette Rugamba, director general of the Rwanda Office of Tourism and National Parks, told Reuters in an interview.
"The genocide brought horrific images into the world's living rooms, so we have been trying very hard to change this perception," she said on Sunday.
The spotlight will fall on Rwanda in early April on the 10th anniversary of the genocide, to be marked by memorial events and visits by foreign dignitaries.
Rugamba hopes to use the focus to point to changes Rwanda has made over the past decade, which include improved services and a greater variety of activities.
Rugamba said Rwanda hoped to draw 70 000 tourists by 2010, up from a peak of 39 000 in 1984 and about 25 000 last year.
Rwanda is using mountain gorillas, made famous by the 1988 film Gorillas In The Mist about primatologist Diane Fossey, as the springboard for high-end tourism.
"Discover a new African dawn" is one of the phrases being used in advertising and at trade fairs in Europe and North America, where the office of tourism has linked up with tour operators offering luxury travel to tourists with deep pockets.