Even though it was evening when we arrived, Gondar city still looked busy . Business centers were opened to the public. Hotels and restaurants were full of customers in dim lights. There was also a group of youngsters selling various maps and pictures for tourist. We were also interacting with significant number of foreign tourists that hail from Europe or America.
I just met a group of tourists walking from the direction of University of Gondar Main Campus. I spoke to Jeff Walker from US, Fenna Jayden from Dutch and some other of their friends. Jeff has been in Gondar for about six , He said that : “Though we have been informed there are some security concerns, especially in areas surrounding the city of Gondar, here we do not see nothing bad, everything is good and peace.”
Visiting Gondar for the first time, Fenna, agreeing with Jeff and she added that; “The people are very hospitable, they are so interactive, everything look good, we are happy in Gondar”
Jeff said that, in the past six months of his stay in Gondar, despite frequently circulated news of conflict among local peoples, he said he saw or heard nothing that create inconvenience to the tourists. He added that: “Gondar has a number of astonishing centuries old historical as well as anthropologicaltourism resources. Therefore I recommend people from everywhere in the world to visit Gondar.”
Head of Gondar City Administration, Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Youths and Sport Directorate Aschalew Worku told The Ethiopian Herald that : “Of course there were slight instability problems in surrounding areas of our City, now the government has fully controlled those areas and yet, there is nothing that could be mentioned as significant obstacles for our tourism progress. On the contrary, we are receiving increasing number of tourists both from abroad and local, in comparison to the same period of last year.”
He indicated that, while the number of foreign tourists visited Gondar last year until end of January is 15,000, but this year at the same period this number could increase to 19,500 tourists.
The total number of local tourists is also expected to exceed by far that of the last year. According to Aschalew, the total number of tourists visited Gondar during the last year was 86,000, but this year only until end of January, 160,442 tourists have visited Gondar and from this the government earned about four million Birr and the community secures 174,512,422 Birr. As to the Director, the increase is due to the ongoing reform in the country apart from putting in place of numerous tourism facilities, such as lodges, international Hotels and others in Gondar City.
Regarding the especial security given to tourists, he said that: “The people of Gondar have well established custom gives protection and respect for tourists and in addition to this, we carefully manage our tourist destinations and city.”
The Ethiopian Herald March 5, 2019
BY YOSEF KETEMA
