The 10th National Tourism Conference was recently held in Semera town, Afar State. During the occasion, Afar Regional State Culture and Tourism Bureau announced that various works are on the move to make the State, Afar, a major tourist destination in Ethiopia in the next ten years.
Afar Regional State Culture and Tourism Bureau Head Ahmed Abdulkadir said that Afar is the home to all kinds of tourist attractions. However, the State could not tap its untapped tourism potentials due to lack of attention to the sector in the past. As to him, the lack of infrastructure development and promotion of tourism resources said the major, bottlenecks behind the State’s poor tourism sector achievement.
However, the State has now come up with a new plan to make the State one of the country’s tourist destinations in the next 10 years.
According to him, it is planned to increase the number of foreign tourists visiting the State from 12,000 in 2019 to 80,000. To achieve this; various activities are carried out and preparations have been finalized to develop selected major tourist destinations that will be implemented in collaboration with federal and state stakeholders.
More importantly, work is underway with the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism to complete the design work to build the Lucy Museum in Afar, where Lucy Museum is located.
The State has launched a project called “Fentale to Erta Ale” to make the area more attractive to visitors in collaboration with the federal government. Efforts are being made to involve the Diaspora community in the development of the sector and a helicopter landing site has recently been set up in the area.
In addition, it is planned to use the Gomere, Boha and Abi lakes, which are home to various aquatic animals including crocodiles and other biodiversity in Afambo Woreda for tourist destination development. Thus, the State is working actively with pertinent stakeholders to attract investors to build recreation center that reflects the culture and traditions of the Afar community. A 15 km paved road construction has been finalized that connect Semera with Allalobed hot springs to unlock its health tourism potentials.
A comprehensive effort is being made to attract investors to the service sector in the State. He said the State will provide free support to investors who want to invest in the service sector.
Participants of the tourism conference held in Semera visited Lake Gomere and Boha in Afambo woreda.
Afambo Woreda Administrator Hussein Ali said the woreda’s youths will engage in traditional handicrafts, tourism and related fields to benefit from the potential tourism resources of the woreda.
Semera University President Dr. Mohammed Osman for his part said that the University would support efforts to make the State become a leading a tourist destination. “The University will provide short and medium-term planning training to youths found in the tourist destinations surrounding. The University will also support the society in a way that can benefit them by providing Afar’s traditional food in a modern way”, he said.
BY TEWODROS KASSA
The Ethiopian Herald 24 May 2022
