Coffee production was devastated during the genocide and civil war,and then gradually revived, but was stopped in 2004/2005. The current level of productivity was never recovered fully after 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. The low level of coffee yield is the result of various environmental,institutional, and farm management challenges.Moreover, the inability of farmers to adopt good agronomic practices such as weeding, mulching, pruning, use of improved varieties, fertilizers,and soil erosion control can also threaten coffee yields . Nyamasheke district is the one of the districts of Western Province of Rwanda.Nyamasheke district is divided into 15 sectors : Ruharambuga, Bushekeri,Bushenge, Cyato, Gihombo, Kagano, Kanjongo, Karambi, Karengera,Kirimbi, Macuba, Nyabitekeri, Mahembe, Rangiro, Shangi, it is also divided into68 cell , and 588 village , Nyamasheke district also has 1174square kilometers .
Nyamasheke district is the most coffee vertical grow table growing in Rwanda with 43,518 coffee farmers, with 13,032,732 of total coffee trees, and more than 39 coffee washing station were installed and operated in that district. Coffee production has been at the core of farm family livelihoods for many generations, and today it serves as source of cash income for over355,000 coffee farmers in Rwanda even if the income from the coffee production is still insufficient to the farmers relating to the farms input . Coffee based tourism is related to the consumption of the coffee, history, traditions,products and culture of a destination. Although literature in the field of coffee tourism is limited, researchers have inter-linked notions of coffee and tourism in a number of different ways that separately or collectively provide potential tourism products. The growth of coffee production and consumption,and an increasing number of coffee-related establishments worldwide suggest that there is a case for coffee-based tourism to be regarded as a growth niche tourism market . Coffee based tourism is subset of rural tourism which believed to have been started in late nineteenth century in Hawaii where coffee was included as part of luxurious vegetation of the uplands,where some tourists had travel experience related to coffee in the region .
The whole issue is that rural tourism based on coffee would improve community income and may alter the expansion of agriculture to sensitive forests. The concept of rural tourism has been popularized in decades mainly to counter the restructuring of western economy that demanded diversification of rural economy and rejuvenation of rurality .The term “rural tourism” sometimes used interchangeably with “agri-tourism”,“farm tourism”, and “farm-based tourism” mobile vertical grow tables and sometimes used in a different,even though some sources claim rural tourism is a comprehensive development approach combining ecotourism, farm tourism, and agri-tourism in a rural setting. Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem.This study followed the qualitative methods, which adopts a holistic view that seeks discovery from involvement in the actual experience and aims to provide an in-depth understanding of social phenomena by exploring and interpreting collected data .This method helped participants to express their feelings beyond the structured questionnaires, hence giving a detailed description and clarify on their perception toward the potential contribution of Coffee-Based Tourism to the study area .
Participants of this study were selected using purposive sampling technique.Respondents were selected according to their participation in coffee industry as well as their capacity to provide reliable data. Data were collected from July to August 2020 on the following respondents: ten coffee washing stations ’s managers and some coffee farmers’ representative. The interviewed managers and coffee farmers were from the following coffee washing station: Nyagatarecws, COOPAC Nyabumera cws, Gitwe cws, Karambi cws, Gasharu cws, Kirambocws, Rugali cws, Muhororo cws, Shara cws, and Kivu Belt Coffee cws. Tosubstantiate the date from the interviews, a document review was conducted.This study reviewed the following documents: the District Development Plan2013, the Rwandan tourism policy 2009, and the National Agriculture Export Development Board 2016.