KWITA IZINA

Rwanda is well-known for its mountain gorillas but little is known of its incredible diversity as a destination or its immense conservation efforts. The first year partnership between National Geographic and Visit Rwanda “repainted a picture” of the country through the eyes of National Geographic photographer Charlie Hamilton James, writer Heather Greenwood Davis and a local designer, entrepreneur and park ranger. Building on this platform, the second year of partnership focused  on how conservation lies at the core of tourism development policy and community engagement.

Building upon the first year of beautifully curated Rwanda Travel Guide content and social promotion, year two saw National Geographic’s renowned photographer Ronan Donovan journeyed through two of Rwanda’s National Parks capturing the stories of the transformative and ambitious conservation programs. A beautiful photo essay was combined with a social media first–National Geographic’s social media audience were given the unique chance to choose a name for one of the newly-born mountain gorillas, celebrating the 15th anniversary of Rwanda’s Kwita Izina gorilla naming ceremony which Donovan attended.

Engagement built across the life of the two campaigns, doubling average engagement rates usually seen on nationalgeographic.com/travel.

The final social post announcement on Instagram of “Intego” as the name for the baby mountain gorilla gained 1.4M impressions.

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