Ethiopia’s tourism industry has been developing from time to time. Many tourists make their destinations at different National parks, historic sites, such as the cities of Axum, Lalibela, Gondar Fasiledes, Negash Mosque, Sof `Umer cave, and Harar Jugol. Beside this, when they arrive in Ethiopia or before they leave the country, it’s better to see our culture at traditional restaurants where they can catch up diverse cultures.
The sector needs more investment since investors engaged in the tourism sector are few in number. Some experts indicate that there are many sectors in the tourism industry that are yet untouched.
Especially in urban areas like Addis Ababa, there is a huge potential for investing on hospitality industry as they are likely to be frequented by local and foreign visitors as they continue to grow rapidly. Among such hospitality industry are cultural restaurants and clubs.
Most of the cultural restaurants are decorated with the traditional features of nation’s and nationalities in the country. Since Ethiopia has more than 80 nationalities, so the sector has to show the country’s rich cultural diversity.
“We offer different services with different cultural music to entertain customers. They enjoy listening music and different cultural dances beside food and drinks. Our company selects those artists by their good performance; they have a good knowledge about the original characteristics of the nation in which most of them are from national theater” says Fikru Yema, Manager of Desalech Kitfo , one of the cultural restaunts in Addis Ababa.
Addis Ababa culture art and Tourism Bureau heritage study and preservation expert Mekbeb Gebremariam says these cultural restaurants are located in few areas but it is important if they spread in every corner of the city. All cultural houses show different cultural dances and the houses are decorated with different traditional materials. This is the main thing to show our culture and tradition to the tourists.
He added, if those cultural houses could offer different cultural food it is helpful for foreigners to know different culture easily. The tourism industry has been developed by the owners’ motivation. If the city administration supports them by offering land for this purpose, big change will be observed.
Manager of Yod Abyssinia Traditional Restaurant Firehiwot Teffera said the existence of this traditional restaurant has big role for tourism development. Many foreigners want to see traditional music, dance, clothes and food; so this traditional restaurant is preferable to get those things together. Like our traditional restaurant, every material must be based on culture and history based; we try to set our cheer, wall, cloths of waiters and dancers to be culture based.
We offer traditional food and souvenir shop where they can get different traditional goods; so they don’t expect to go far away.
Guislain Claude from Lille, north France says “This is my fist time and I am very astonished with this country. My friends and I visit the countryside and it’s very huge and the peoples are kind. We have visited several churches like Lalibela and different monasteries with old paintings and treasures recognized since 1,000 years ago.
Additionally, we saw different cultural restaurants in different cities including Addis Ababa; and they are amazing I like all traditional dances and clothes but I feel a little bit discomfort with food pepper and chill. It’s very different from us and it was hard for me. I like the food that I eat in Axum, those traditional restaurants are very helpful to see the different culture at a time.’’
For the development of this industry, Addis Ababa culture and tourism bureau has big responsibility to follow up those restaurants so as to raise the number of tourists and visitors.
The Ethiopian Herald February 22/2020
BY BETHLEHEM ASFAW
