Fetsum Aregay
Ethiopia
attained more than $3.4 billion from its tourism sector in the fiscal year, a
big leap from previous year's revenues. The ministry of Culture and Tourism disclosed that the revenue was
half billion more than earnings in the previous year of $2.9 billion. More than
918 000 people visited Ethiopia during the year under review, 17.6pc higher
than the preceding fiscal year. Ethiopia's tourism industry has created 979,000
jobs while Egypt, the leading tourist destination in Africa, has created 1.3
million jobs.
The increasing
influence of the country that helped Ethiopia host international events had
also a positive impact as tourism now contributes four percent to Ethiopia's
gross domestic product (GDP), an increase from a decade ago when it contributed
one percent to the GDP. A significant amount of foreigners visited Ethiopia to
attend international conferences and exhibitions. "The increasing
influence of the country that helped Ethiopia host international events had
also a direct and positive impact in boosting tourism," Minister Gezahegn
told AP. Over 83,700 foreigners attended conferences in Ethiopia last year, he
said.
The government,
in 2013, finally embarked on reforming the sector with the expectation that
tourism could generate jobs, income and wealth as much as any other sector. A
tourism council, Ethiopian Tourism Transformation Council, was established to
provide direction to the industry and an office was created to handle
marketing, promotion and product development. The tourism push coincided with a
massive upsurge in foreign investment from China, India, Turkey and other
nations that boosted GDP to annual growth rates of around 10%. In tandem with
the economy, tourism is slowly but surely moving toward the great expectations.
Since then the
Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the council has been introducing a number
of tourism development strategies with the aim of pushing Ethiopia’s tourism
sector forward. In its bid to become a middle income country with a
climate-resilient economy, the country has laid out widespread strategies that
will allow it to entice more leisure travelers into its destinations.
Enormous
growths strategy was crafted to enable the country improve its share at the
global tourism market. Presently, the tourism industry contributes a little
over 4% to the GDP, insufficient value of what the country aspires to increase
its revenue from the sector. The industry’s contribution to GDP was 1% in 2003
and it rose to 4% in 2014, lagging far behind the continent’s growth. However,
the figure is predicted to rise by 4.8% in 2024 creating a direct economic
significance. Ethiopia has also
become the preferred destination of international conferences. It hosted conferences
such as third International Conference on Financing for Development, a
pre-summit ahead of the landmark UN SDG summit in 2015. Ethiopia also hosted
the first International Summit on Social and Behavior Change Communication
(SBCC), The U.S.-Africa Business Summit and the Aid and Development Africa
Summit of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The AU Conference
center was inaugurated in 2012 enhancing the event hosting capability of
Ethiopia along with the UN conference centers.
Ethiopia now aims
to be among the top five destinations in Africa by 2022.
During the
period of the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II), the tourism
sector targets to generate a revenue of six billion dollars annually from two
million tourists. The government emphasizes on the need for a tourism sector
which is both environmentally friendly and economically viable to generate
sustainable revenue.
With that
target in mind, Ethiopia launched its new tourism brand dubbed “Land of
Origins” this month. The new promotion logo which replaced, the decades old
“Land of Thirteen Month of Sunshine” logo. It represents the fact that Ethiopia
is dubbed “the cradle of mankind” following the archeological discoveries of
Lucy and others and also that the main export item Coffee Arabica is believed
to have originated in Kaffa, Ethiopia. The country’s main food staple, Teff,
and many other clothing and architectural traditions have also originated in ancient
Ethiopia. Hence the new logo captures all in one single line, Land of Origins.
Prime
Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn urged the Ethiopian Tourism Transformation
Council (ETTC) to utilize resources of the country and make the nation one of
the best tourist destinations in the world. Speaking at the official launching
of the Ethiopian tourism brand, the premier called on ETTC to work with the
private sector and develop the tourism potential of the nation. Encouraging
results have been attained after the government started implementing its
Tourism Policy and Strategy, he said. He, however, emphasized that the tourism
project should be developed to make the sector competitive in the global
market. Attention need to therefore be given to national parks, historical
sites, diverse cultural heritages and other tourism potentials.
Chief
Executive Director of Ethiopian Tourism Organization, Solomon Tadesse on his
part said his organization targeted tourism marketing development, capacity
building, development of new and old tourist destinations as well as
cooperation and integration with stakeholders during the First Growth and
Transformation Plan (GTP I). “We have been striving to realize our vision of
maximizing tourism revenues and to make Ethiopia one of the top five tourist
destinations in Africa by 2025. This requires achieving ambitious market growth
targets which include an increase in tourism arrivals at an average annual rate
of 20% per annum to 5 million tourists, and increasing also receipts per visitor
at an average annual rate of 1.6% to USD 1,100 and increasing total tourism
receipts at an average annual rate of 20% per annum to USD 12.5 billion,”
Solomon elaborated. The Chief Executive Officer indicated lack of
infrastructure, capable human resource, accessibility, accommodations and
hotels among the challenges the tourism sector faced in GTP I.
Tourism
was on the back burner for a long time as the country was going through major
changes and the government's priorities were health, education, communication. The
deficiency of effective promotion strategies and pricey services still drags
the country far behind its neighboring competitors. Substandard accommodation
is also another obstacle for Ethiopia to achieve its tourism potential. CNN
reviewed that even the best hotels in celebrated destinations like Gondar,
Lalibela and Bahir Dar hover just above a backpacker level. The hotel situation
in the south is even direr, with only a handful of properties rising above a
single star, it found in its report.
The
Government, is determined to significantly increase the number of tourists
during the 2nd Growth and Transformation Plan (2015–2020). The Ministry of
Culture and Tourism plans to triple foreign visitors to more than 2.5 million
by 2020. This would make Ethiopia one of the top five tourist destinations in
Africa. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism hopes to increase the number of
tourists that visit Ethiopia to one million, and the revenue earned to well
over US$3billion by the end of this Ethiopian budget year, by July 2016. In
order to improve the service quality in hotels, the Addis Ababa City
Administration alone trained 3,000 hotel and tourism professionals and efforts
are underway to expand conference tourism to regional towns such as Adama,
Bahirdar, Hawassa and Bishoftu so as to boost Ethiopia’s income from the sector.
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