Ethiopia plans to increase tourism revenue by three fold over the next five years

Bahir Dar – Ethiopia has set target to secure seven billion USD revenues from tourism at the end of the second five-year Growth and Transformation Plan Period (GTP), an official said.

The plan is to increase the revenue the nation collected from foreign tourists at the end of the first GTP, the just concluded Ethiopian fiscal year, by threefold, Amin Abdulkadir Minister of Tourism said.

The country had secured two billion USD from 700,000 foreign tourists who visited tourist destinations during the first GTP period.

Opening new destination for tourists, expanding infrastructure networks and promoting tourist destinations are among the few things to be done in order to meet the target, he said.

Amin said, the government has taken a lesson over the past five years that tourism can be a huge source of revenue for the nation and a major instrument to eradicate poverty.

Regarding job creation, the sector is expected to create half a million additional jobs at the end of the five-year plan. Currently, tourism employs 700,000 people.

The nation is expected to finish most of the work to achieve its vision of becoming one of the top five tourist destination countries in the continent during these five years, he added.

Source: ENA