And Speaking Of... The Retreat in Rwanda

Last week, I had an opportunity to share my experience in Rwanda at a travel event co-hosted by Jen Campbell Boles of Explore More Family Travel and Sandy Salle of Hills of Africa Travel .

It was so amazing to relive my Rwanda experience. I'm sure the audience was expecting me to drone on about the majestic Gorillas, but instead, I found myself sharing stories from the people I met on this experience.

There are so many stories to share, and for this week's series, I want to share an interview I did with the owner of The Retreat in Kigali, Rwanda – Alissa Ruxin .

Alissa and Josh Ruxin , an American couple, went to Rwanda as public health grads from Harvard in a post-war conflict country for their honeymoon and never returned! Their journey is fascinating and one that I feel inspired to share!

Tell me how you found your way to Rwanda.

I first moved to Rwanda sight unseen – my husband and I came here on our honeymoon almost 20 years ago and never left. We both worked in public health at the time, though his focus was international. Josh worked in different African countries for many years, and we thought we would leave Manhattan for a year to pursue the work.?

Josh was a public health professor at Columbia University and was funded to come and run not-for-profit initiatives in health, agriculture, education, and microfinance in impoverished communities.

So, we moved here to work as public health professionals, and as honeymooners, we said, "Let's do a year in Rwanda," but then we never left. Not only did we see so many opportunities to work in the public health sector, but I also became inspired to be part of rebuilding the country.

Why did you decide to start a hospitality business as a means to help rebuild the community?

My inspiration for starting this business came from volunteer work. I volunteered at an orphanage called Gisimba here, which saved many lives during the war. There were dozens of 17- to 23-year-olds sitting around the orphanage. While volunteering there, I realized what I really wanted to do wasn't necessarily to work for a public health organization but create a new opportunity for these young adults.

They had lost their parents, and while some of them had gotten through high school, they had no money for higher-level education. I asked my husband what he thought about my idea, and he told me to write a business plan. I originally thought about a coffee shop because Rwanda is known for coffee and tea, but the business plan grew from a coffee shop into a full restaurant.

We naively figured that we knew enough about food and service to set up a small cafe or restaurant. But Kigali didn't have many hospitality options at the time, just a handful of restaurants that an international tourist would visit, mainly in a couple of hotels.

At the time, most small businesses were built out of homes, so we found a house with a big green garden and built Heaven Restaurant to be the first hospitality training restaurant in the country.

Tell us about your entrepreneurial experience in starting and building the original restaurant.

This all started 18 years ago. I was not a risk taker, but my husband was, and he encouraged me to become entrepreneurial. So, I went from a bureaucratic job in public health to becoming an entrepreneur overnight.

It was sort of like a self-taught MBA because, in the beginning, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was just running a social business, which wasn't making a dollar because we were just making enough to pay the employees. Thank goodness my husband had a job! During the first few years, we joked that we were paying people to eat at our restaurant.

We learned how to make a profit over the years, and learned how important it is to create a sustainable business. If it's not sustainable, then you can't keep employing people. And then you can't expand.

How did Heaven grow from a restaurant to what it is today?

It started with people wanting to spend the night, as they would come into our restaurant and ask, "Where are your rooms?"?

At the time, it was mostly embassy or United Nations workers. And so we started with three little rooms next to the restaurant. And then we expanded to 12 rooms. Then, we expanded to 28 rooms with Heaven Restaurant and Heaven Boutique Hotel. My husband chronicled our efforts during the first decade in "A Thousand Hills to Heaven: Love, Hope and a Restaurant in Rwanda."

Heaven Boutique Hotel, along with the restaurant, became really popular, and it no longer felt just like a restaurant. It was a space for the community to enjoy, where we hosted musicians, artists, dancers, and even acrobats.

In 2017, the government focused on branding Rwanda as a luxury destination. We were always proud of Heaven, but it was a four-star property. We had to ask ourselves if a five-star would come here.

And then it started to happen. Singita and One&Only announced their entry; Radisson and Marriott opened; Wilderness came, and we could see that luxury tourists would be coming but were concerned they would overlook this incredible city we call home.

That's when the inspiration came to not just have Heaven, but to build something luxury and boutique in the middle of Kigali. We had our big corporate hotels here, but we didn't have anything where it felt like you are where you are, and you feel Rwanda. And we wanted our staff to deliver that warm local hospitality, which is hard to do in a larger hotel.

We opened The Retreat and, within a year, expanded it to 20 rooms. Now we have two restaurants: Heaven, modern African cuisine, and Fusion, more international fine dining.

How did you build a luxury property in Rwanda without compromising the country's culture and heart?

While building it, we kept everything as local as possible. We used volcanic stone, which is found locally, and sustainable pine grown in the country. We used bamboo in the bar, and my kids and I sponge-painted it.

I didn't have a huge budget for interior design, so I went with the local artisans. You'll see made-in-Rwanda products throughout the Retreat, from the lamps to the pillowcases to the little cow horn cups we put in the bathroom to store cotton balls.

You'll also find Rwandan art woven through the property. We invited three galleries to put a hundred paintings across the campus, and now people can walk through and enjoy contemporary art, even if they only spend a day with us.

What we wanted to build here was really a retreat. A space where you can land and explore the city and the culture, and also luxuriate and have an excellent spa treatment, enjoy the gym, have a yoga class followed by a cooking class or a primer on making banana wine.

We wanted to create a beautiful, luxurious space for the luxury traveler, but the purpose was always to support hospitality training, job creation, and the economy.

All you have to do to support Rwanda is come here. You don't have to be a doctor or a humanitarian worker; you can be a tourist and still do so much good for the country.

Most of the people working here have never left the country and don't have their own lens for what makes a five-star experience. How do you train them to deliver a luxury experience for your guests?

When I started in hospitality, I was training kids who had never eaten out in a restaurant and certainly had never set foot in a hotel. With no service industry training available then, we had to start with the basics. Over time (we've now trained over 3000 people!), we developed techniques for practical on-the-job training. 99% of my team of 220 people are Rwandan – we are highly focused on promoting from within rather than recruiting outside Rwanda's borders.

We sit around a table and have meetings on Monday and Friday, discussing how to better the practical training. Everything I do is practical; it's not theory-based. While our staff has a script for the warm welcome and orientation, we encourage them to develop their own personal script: to be themselves and bring their experience to all customer interactions.

What do you think the future will hold?

We have considered building another retreat in Rwanda simply because we believe there is still space for "value for money" luxury. We are checking out possibilities in Virunga National Park and elsewhere.?

The luxury brands are unique but also quite expensive - limiting who can come, and we would love to add more options.

Inspired by the Heaven experience, Josh founded East Africa's leading pharmacy retail brand – Goodlife – to transform primary health care. He launched in Rwanda just over a year ago, and it currently has eight stores and is the fastest-growing consumer brand in the country.

Over a decade ago, we adopted four kids who are doing amazingly well in US universities and residency in Kenya. On the back of that experience, we have set up a fund to support private education for vulnerable youth. So far, between our hotel guests and other donors, we're supporting eight kids, and we've already identified dozens more who just need a little assistance to succeed.

Thank you to Alissa for sharing her story with me during my visit to Kigali. It was so inspiring to hear about her entrepreneurial journey over the past two decades! I'd love to hear your thoughts on my interview this week - drop a comment below for Alissa or myself and we can continue the conversation!