Ethiopia Aim At Being Among Top Five Tourist Destinations in Africa
Addis Ababa — The Ethiopian Tourism Organization (ETO) has said it is making strong efforts to promote Ethiopia to the rest of the world towards realizing the vision of becoming among the top five tourist destinations in Africa by 2025.
During an exclusive interview with Xinhua, Solomon Tadesse, ETO Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said his organization has a vision of having about 5 million tourists to the country to generate about 7 billion U.S. dollars earnings from the tourism sector by 2025.
To realize the vision, Solomon said improving services is one of the top priorities of his organization.
“Top priority for us now is to make sure that Ethiopia has all the services, world class services to receive tourists.
“So, we are looking at working towards improving all the services, including hotels, lodges, transportation and professional tour guides.
“We are working on that heavily in terms of improving our sites, our services, at the same time we are introducing Ethiopia to the rest of the world,” noted the CEO.
“So, one of the responsibilities would be capacity building as well as marketing products and destination development, and then working with all our stakeholders is another important part.” added Tadesse.
With very old history, diverse culture, beautiful landscape, rich wildlife range as well as suitable weather, Solomon said Ethiopia has the potential for tourism, which can contribute to its economic development.
The CEO also stated that his organization is working with stakeholders to boost the sector in the country.
“Tourism is not just done by one government office.
“Tourism is basically a job of everyone.
“So, the communities will play a role; the service sector which I was mentioning earlier, from the hotels, tour operators, tour guides, each one of them has their own responsibility and duty.
“So, this is a concerted effort; with all these stakeholders to make sure the tourists come to Ethiopia and enjoy Ethiopia,” he said.
Source: Xinhua
Though the country has many attractions including unique historical record, Ten World Heritage Sites, and potential for wildlife development. Until recent, Ethiopians themselves as well as the rest of the world have not been aware of this huge potential. But at the moment a process of awakening is in full swing.