BY TEWODROS KASSA
Various local and international media as well as tourism experts witnessed that Ethiopia is home to diversified natural and man-made tourism endowments. The country is the leading country in Africa for inscribing numerous tangible and intangible heritages in the prestigious UNESCO heritages list from Africa.
Thus, being the richest country with such wonderful natural and man-made tourist attractions will enable the country to generate more from the tourism sector.
The sector has a potential to create more job opportunities to the growing number of youths and immensely contribute to change the socio-economic of the society. More importantly, the sector is still untapped regarding to expanding various touristic service providing investments in different parts of the country. Thus, the tourism sector is believed to catalyse the country’s goal of achieving comprehensive socio-economic growth.
Ethiopia is the birthplace of mankind. The three million year old Lucy skeleton is discovered in the country and available at the Ethiopian National Museum for visitors. The Arabica coffee variety, the world’s longest River-Abay, the Ertaale active volcanic lake, and the world’s lowest and hottest place, Dalol, are found in Ethiopia. Not only this, Ethiopia is also home to numerous rift valley lakes and hot springs, as well as wildlife parks and sanctuaries. Ethiopia has many natural, historical tourist attractions.
Although it has numerous tourist attractions, different data shows that the tourism sector is still at its infant stage. Tourism Expert Tesfaye Zeleke (PhD) told The Ethiopian Press Agency (EPA) that Ethiopia is one of the countries that have abundant tourism resources in Africa. The country is known for its wide cultural, religious, historical, and natural resources. The biggest task expected from the country is to change these potential resources into tourism products and services to enable the sector contribute to the national economy.
As to him, the country is in a good position to welcome more international and domestic tourists in its famous and newly developed tourist destinations. Both the government and the private sector operators working in the tourism sector should fulfil their responsibility to realize the vision of increasing the sector’s revenue. Educational institutions should also design a curriculum that takes this situation into account and supply qualified and competent human resources in the sector.
In addition, the country owns various natural, tangible and intangible heritages that are unique in the world. Thus, undertaking mega tourism projects by the government are additional tourism resources. It is necessary to maintain such resources properly in order to turn the bounty potentials to economic gain. Understanding this, the government announced that it included tourism as one of the key economic sectors a year ago in a researched and policy-supported manner. In addition to this, new tourism destination projects and infrastructure are being built throughout the country. Major inclusive tourism development projects are being built in various places in Ethiopia under the leadership and initiative of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD).
In addition, the government has announced that a new strategy has been designed and implemented to increase the tourism sector’s income, market and promote it assisted with knowledge and technology. Recently, Prime
Minister Abiy said that various activities are on-going to increase the country’s economic benefits from the sector. In addition, the challenge that the sector is facing and the steps taken to solve it are registering promising changes. As a pillar of economic growth, the tourism sector is one of the mainstays towards supporting the journey of sustainable prosperity. Realizing this objective helps to ensuring that the service sector is growing and expanding in the country.
As the country is endowed with ample tourism potential, giving more attention to the sector will significantly contribute to engaging various actors in the area and to tap the untapped potential of the sector.
Stating the unexploited potential of resources in Ethiopia, the Premier underscored the importance of realizing this reality. The resources should be developed in a way that can benefit the citizens and the country.
According to him, Ethiopia has a long history, diversified culture, and numerous tourist destinations that can create numerous job opportunities for the growing number of youths in providing different touristic services. The government has recently given special attention to the tourism sector and is carrying out various activities in developing new tourist destinations. In addition to the largest construction projects of new tourist destinations that are on-going, attention has also been given to the repair and maintenance of ancient heritage sites.
For instance, the Rock Hewn churches of Lalibela are being renovated keeping the original status. The renovation process is being done effectively in collaboration with the French Government. The existing heritage should remain intact. The other renovation plan is the National Palace (Unity Park) that is partly done. The Unity Parking lot, a 105 meters long tunnel constructed below ground and leads into Unity Park at the Grand Palace, is also the other success in this regard.
Regarding the new tourist destinations development, the Prime Minister said that many of the new tourism destinations projects that are being developed with the government’s commitment are being completed.
Accordingly, tourism is not something that can be done only by renovating and repairing the existing tourist destination. New constructions and destinations development is important to harness the sector’s potentials.
The Prime Minister cited Gorgora Tourism Development Project as a model of new tourism projects initiated by the government and explained that it is a huge and beautiful project that sought to attract numerous local and international tourists.
Moreover, the government understands well the need to change all tourism sector resources into potential tourist destinations and is undertaking various activities regarding developing new tourist destinations. However, apart from construction and maintenance activity, the tourism service sector needs to be improved, he said.
In sum, the country’s tourism sector promising achievements are being witnessed with the successful accomplishment of the Sheger Park, Meskel Square, and Entoto Park projects. The government is working to make Ethiopia one of the leading tourist destination countries in the world. Successive organizational reform, undertaking mega tourist projects and designing various laws and strategies for the sector implementation are among the government’s initiatives towards making the sector more competitive and garner a better economic benefit.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD 16 DECEMBER 2022
