• Earns two bln USD
•Generates 44 bln Birr from domestic tourism
BY ASHENAFI ANIMUT
ADDIS ABABA – Having attracted 504,840 foreign tourists during the last six months alone, Ethiopia has secured over two billion USD. It was also noted that it has achieved 64.8% of this fiscal year’s overall plan in the reported period. According to the Ministry of Tourism (MoT), those individuals who visited Ethiopia were mainly tourists, attendees of various international conferences, businesspersons and the like.
Regarding the domestic tourism, the country has managed to generate 44 billion Birr during the last six- months. The achievement is beyond its plan of earning 32.9 billion Birr. Speaking to The Ethiopian Herald, MoT Communication Director Alemayehu Getachew said that MoT has been aggressively working on enhancing local and foreign visitors’s flow more than ever providing various tourist attractive packages.
The federal, regional institutions and other actors have been playing a substantial role in the sector. Despite the previous global pandemic and conflict, domestic tourism has already revived, he said adding that the MoT and various concerned regional tourism bureaus have signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in a bid to motivate the local tourists to visit many more tourism sites.
Domestic Tourism Promotion Desk Head Binyam Asrat for his part said that the MoT has been carrying out various core initiatives by improving the community’s visiting culture, insight-gathering, in branding tourist destinations and enhancing the marketing activities that help to develop tourism. ‘’The MoT has developed the services in collaboration with the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia dubbed ‘Guzo’ savings account aimed at making it easier for visitors to save for future tours and pay for their travel expenses and to get them ready for the next visit with 5 to 7 % refund from charge,” he added.
It is also stated that the service allows customers to make savings for tours and has special incentives for individual or group use. It was learnt that tourist stay in Addis Ababa is now ranging from 5 to 6 days on average. Entoto, Friendship and Unity parks had been visited by 50,000, 195,679 and 18,281 domestic tourists respectively in the reported period, as to the MoT.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 22 MARCH 2023
