Timket festival promotes domestic tourism
BY TEWODROS KASSA
The Ethiopian Airlines flight to Gondar has grown to more than twenty times during the recent Ethiopian Timket festival. The Ethiopian Airlines announced that the decision of increasing the Airline’s trip from Addis Ababa to Gondar comes after identifying a huge demand from local tourists to attend and celebrate Timket in the historic city, Gondar. The demand is also increasing year after year; and the Ethiopian has also gained a good reputation through providing commendable and standardized transportation services to international tourists that arrive to Ethiopia to visit every corner of the country.
The number of flights and other land transport to Gondar witnesses that there is a huge flow of local tourists to the historic city of Gondar to celebrate the glorious Timket festival. More importantly, as it is witnessed from festival’s experience, hand-in-hand collaboration among pertinent stakeholders will significantly contribute towards harnessing the domestic tourism sector potentials.
Ethiopia is among the richest countries with its numerous tangible and intangible tourism potentials; though it has been generating lower from the tourism sector. Thus, such encouraging activities registered during this year’s Timket festival signals new insights on how to develop domestic tourism.
No wonder, the country is home to unique and diverse tangible and intangible cultural, natural, historical and archaeological attractions. Thus the Ethiopian Government identifying the tourism sector as one of the five economic pillars of the country has been working untiringly to augment its contribution in the economy and gain the needed benefit. To this end, it has devised various strategies that develop the sector.
The government’s attention to the tourism sector, in turn, has contributed a lot to use this potential resource to move the economy forward.
Currently, the tourism sector is reviving in the country following the peace agreement signed between the Ethiopian Government and TPLF for the reason guaranteeing peace and availing the necessary infrastructural facilities throughout the country is helpful to lead the tourism sector effectively.
The flow of tourists will be high this month due to the fact that many ceremonies are held in connection with the great religious and cultural celebrations. Following this, the travel from one place to another place and the economic value gained from the tourism sector records high in this season, according to tourism experts.
In the same manner, various documents indicate that during the months of December and January, the flow of visitors to the northern part of the country increases. The major reason behind is that there is a great demand and domestic tourists flow to celebrate Christmas Ethiopian Genna in Lalibala Rock Hewn Churches and the Baptism of Jesus Christ Timket festival in a special way in Gondar city.
Amhara State Tourism and Culture Bureau Head Tahir Muhammad said that further enticing festivities like Azmari festival [traditional singers’ Festival] are held aiming at elongating domestic tourists stay at Gondar city. The increase of local tourists stay is fundamental to promote the area’s socio-economic development through promoting local markets and creating new market opportunities for touristic service providers.
Accordingly, several tourism events were organized in and out of Gondar city pertaining to harnessing the potentials of domestic tourism. Effective and coordinated utilization of sector mobilizers’ efforts is fundamental to motivate the tourism sector’s tangible contributions to the national economy. However, there are still bottlenecks that hinder the sector’s advancement.
In Gondar city, the number of domestic visitors in the 2021 fiscal year was merely 57,000. These numbers of visitors were registered due to the impact of the war in the northern part of the country and the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. At the same situation, the number of visitors during the 2022 Gondar Timket festival celebration had increased to 325,000. During this period a total of more than one billion birr was earned from domestic visitors in the city.
This information shows that there is a high flow of domestic visitors to the area even though there were several peace and security as well as pandemic challenges. This year, the number of domestic visitors has a shown a promising increment and facilitate the city’s tourism service provider’s activities starting from the eve of the festival to the end.
In sum, the presence of such colourful street festivals will advance the country’s domestic tourism sector. Thus, the coordinated efforts of the government, private actors, and pertinent stakeholders are important to fully harness the untapped potentials of the domestic tourism sector to meaningfully support local people and accelerate the national economic growth.
The culture of Ethiopians moving from one place to other place for conference, religious pilgrimage, hiking, among others is gaining momentum from time to time. Therefore, effectively promoting such movement immensely contributes to generate a tangible income from the sector and create numerous job opportunities to the growing number of youths graduating from higher educational institutions every year.
In addition, tourist service providers, tour operators, hotels and the community will benefit greatly when domestic tourism is given due attention from all actors. The hotel service providers should also avail standardized services so as to maintain their good name and promote domestic tourists flow in the future as every service provided to the guest will have a significant impact to promote others to visit the area. Moreover, efforts should be exerted to maintain the domestic tourists flow sustainably and become active throughout the year.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 27 JANUARY 2023
