Conferences, summits and/or conventions, among others, have contributed a lot to the effort geared towards introducing a certain country or region to the rest of the world. Yes, they can be used to build host country’s image and attract tourism, too.
The significance of event tourism is, for example, of paramount importance in attracting visitors, investors, celebrities who do have great potential to invest in Ethiopia and help advance the socio-economic aspect in return. Since the number of tourists continues to grow and their inflow has demanded a lot of infrastructure, making all the necessary requirements needs to be made prioritized and tourism industry in the country should receive due emphasis.
In so doing, high-grade visitors and tourists can be attracted to help the capital, Addis Ababa, have optimum benefit with minimal demerits. This is where meetings, conventions and exhibitions, collectively known as the meetings industry, may offer the best option for the capital looking to optimize the revenue while at the same time looking to its broader economic and social policy aspirations for the betterment of inhabitants. What is practically being done in Ethiopia, especially in the capital, is a case in point in this regard as the capital has been a hub of influential and meaningful conferences.
It is well recognized that tourism has emerged as a dynamic sector in the global economy. Numerous countries of the world have thus used tourism to promote their positive image as well as socio-economic development. It can bring dividends to a given nation’s economy and generate employment opportunities. Tourism industry propels the associated economic activity related to transportation, hotels, entertainment, shopping, and food industries. That is why Ethiopia has now well embarked on it.
Undeniably, international conferences and tourism are significantly useful in building national image. As the conferences and summits being held in the capital have demanded high standard of venues, Addis Ababa is expected to construct and promote the existing ones to make it a conference city, because whenever the city fulfills all the requirements, being a conference city for it would be tantamount to take something ready to hit a target using predetermined socio-economic weapon.
Since the strategic planning and organizing of events is used to widen tourist attractions that can help build a given country’s image and create awareness, Ethiopia has to improve its image via attracting visitors, investors, guests and others thereby reinvigorating tourism industry.
Ethiopia’s image is the overall perception people have of a place, which is shaped by factors like expanded tourism, achievable conferences, and summits, among others. Conferences and events can influence a nation’s image, which can then impact tourists’ decision-making and behaviors has been well risen.
Conventions are a large and growing sector of the tourism industry, and can provide the country with a lot of exposure and tourists. Besides, managing and properly handling the essence of conventions, summits and conference destinations can help identify strengths and weaknesses, and improve nation’s competitive position.
Conference tourism can also benefit Ethiopia’s image and be a form, as well as weapon, of sustainable tourism development. A conference with a variety of events can be more effective than a destination with many occasion centers.
Cities and towns are continuously branding and rebranding as a result of achieving a competitive position in the region to stimulate visits, investments and economic advantages. These days, using conferences and summits, the environment is actively in move and competition is becoming constantly more powerful.
Thus, in order for cities like Addis Ababa, to distinct from each other, hosting conference tourism is of great importance to create a good image of them.
There are various products and strategies for building a destination image. However, cities are intensively adopting events and festivals as an approach of enhancing their image, encouraging city development and attracting investments and tourists. What the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Abba, is doing right this time is an exemplary move in this regard.
The purpose of holding wider conferences and grand summits in cities is to establish a unique image and identification, which has been gaining a critical attention off late, has been attained almost all the time from beautiful attractions, unique traditions and cultures, friendly people, as well as from breathtaking landscapes. These all are with which Ethiopia is endowed.
Building a destination image rely upon a range of determinants, such the general population, the businesses, financial agents, prime economic drivers, which have a critical impact on developing tourism luring tourism centers.
Nowadays, visitors, which are encouraged by the growth of leisure time, as well as the increased levels of available incomes and more organized and productive systems of transportation, have the opportunity to choose and select between the greater diversity of destinations. Thus, conferences and events are considered to have a critical role in the decision of a tourist regarding their visits, and the satisfaction of visitors depends greatly on the comparisons between the expectations regarding host places with the actual given experience of the visited panorama.
The most important determinant on establishing a positive brand image is the involvement on continues promotion activities. Therefore, destinations seek to spotlight and place cities as brands, by advertising them to various groups of visitors. Conferences, events and festivals have long been considered as to be as one of the quickest developing tourism adventures and experiences, and one of the most successful catalyst for mounting tourism, in fact.
Hence, conference centers or destinations in short, are intensively adopting events as an approach of enhancing their image, of encouraging municipal development and attracting investments and tourists.
As tourism nowadays, is considered to be one of the biggest and quickest growing industries, identified with immanent requirement for continued variety of products as well as one of the quickest sector for economic development, conferences and events have to be well expanded!
Conference tourism attains a huge role for providing benefits in cultural, social and environmental areas, and the position and capacity of tourism in the modern community led to the growth of a large number of touristic products and to excessive networks, techniques and connections.
Cities such as Addis are intensively approved events as a move toward of enhancing their image, and not long ago, events and festivals have been measured as to be as one of the most prompt developing tourism adventures and incidents, that have made places to instantaneously incorporate all their strategies and objectives to touristic present needs. No doubt, conferences are crucial stimulators of the tourism, which figure positively in the progress of a destination and advertising goals for the majority of destinations are organized for image establishment, brand improvement and for market positioning. Furthermore, events are the ideal opportunity when a country attempts to capture the attention of tourists.
Cities are being considered as compound products that are in need to be traded and publicized among advanced strategies of commercializing.
However, the most important attributes for a successful brand are proper advertisement, natural resources, political and economic structures; infrastructure and last but not least the general public’s hospitable spirit. Thus, it is fundamental for the host city and/or organizers of conferences to consider all the possible aspects that events could affect the host society’s social, economic, environmental, socio cultural and political impacts. The most common impacts of a conference can be social impacts on locals, income production, infrastructure inheritance, publicity and visit returns.
Moreover, conferences and summits add value to the quality of life by empowering interactions among various cities even distinct countries, improving recognition of miscellaneous societies and cultures, as well as behaving as a source of local pride. Apart from economic effects that summits and events bring on cities, recently for countries or regions, cultural and social effects have taken a great attention as well.
Events can generate more connection between the societies, build national pride, exchange traditions and culture of a community, open new business possibilities, as well as make the residents feel more relaxed and appreciate more their culture and each other/one another. Promotion of events is of crucial importance in buttressing tourists’ inflow and offering interesting and low package prices for tourists, and for making this a success, organizers of events should cooperate with active drivers of the wheel and the concerned body of the nation running such lucrative initiatives.
As the influence of multidimensional conferences and summits, structural elements and place brand on destinations’ overall image, based on an appraisal of capacity and environmental-friendly components of destination image, the conferences offer people a great platform to share thoughts and to gain insights from tourism industry experts. Unequivocally, no matter in which part of the world people are living, they can attend these conferences in Africa and Ethiopia. Yes, international conference on socio-cultural, and socio-economic and cooperation trajectory is a gluing event dedicated to set up firm foundation for people-to-people and country-to-country ties.
This brings together tourists, visitors, investors, scholars, researchers, practitioners, entrepreneurs and educators to share the benefits of making the tourism industry wide thereby economic and social advancement swells via entertaining tourism industry-driven endeavors.
Conference tourism strategically integrates natural, architectural, and cultural elements, such as the contours of mountains, traditional sloped roofs, and the pattern of unfolded Ethiopian cultures and comprehensively interprets their values and essence.
In sum, developing countries like ours can earn substantial foreign exchange from tourism that could boost their sustainable development. Yes, Ethiopia has all the elements that can make it an attractive tourist destination. It is home to mighty mountains, revered religious shrines, rich archaeological heritage, mesmerizing scenes and remarkable highlands.
However, its tourism potential remains grossly under-realized. Given the multitude of impediments to developing tourism as an industry, including connectivity issues, lack of hospitality infrastructure, and inadequate visitor services, there is a need to clearly identify the obstruction to promoting tourism, and make tangible proposal to transform tourism into an image-building and revenue-generating industry that can bring socio-economic bonus for the people of the nation.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2024
