ETHIOPIA – TOURISM FACTS AND DRAWBACKS
For many years, Ethiopia has attracted the discerning traveller. Thousands of years before the appearance of the Lonely Planet Guides, visitors extolled its attractions and wonders. The first illustrated travel guides to Ethiopia can be found in the friezes in the pyramids and ancient sites of Egypt. These depicted trips to the land of Punt, which the Egyptians knew was the source of the Nile, and where they traded for gold, incense, ivory and slaves.
The fourth century Persian historian Mani described the Ethiopian Kingdom of Axum as being of the four great empires of the world, ranking it alongside China, Persia and Rome. Axumite coins have been found in India and China, and the obelisks of Axum (like the one looted by Mussolini and recently returned by the Italians) are the biggest single pieces of stone erected anywhere in the world.
Nowadays, Ethiopia faces an image problem for tourists – the image of famine, hunger, war and drought. This was not always the case. Ethiopia was one of the first African countries to set up a tourist industry and, in the 1960s, tourist arrivals grew at the rate of 12 per cent a year. By 1974, when the Emperor Haile Selassie was toppled and replaced by a military regime, Ethiopia’s tourist sector was on a par with Kenya’s. Ethiopia then had actually more to offer than Kenya: both had coastlines, spectacular scenery and abundant wildlife, but only Ethiopia also had historic sites and an identity defined by its own history, culture and peoples, rather than by colonialism.
The coming of the Derg, as the military dictatorship came to be known, ushered in a period of civil wars and state sponsored famines. Tourist traffic took a dive. Recovery came with the ousting of the Derg in 1991. Since then, almost year on year, tourist arrivals have shown a steady increase and last year Ethiopia attracted 200,000 visitors – more than double what they were in 1991. We shouldn’t be surprised, after all, Ethiopia is home to no less than seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The Ethiopian tourism sector now constitutes about 2 per cent of GDP, and accounts for 15 per cent of foreign currency earnings, which in 2003 amounted to $77 million. The Ethiopian Tourism Commissioner, Yusuf Abdullahi Sukkar, has predicted that earnings from tourism will outstrip coffee (the country’s current main export earner) within five years.
Despite the upward trend, the sector is still seen as under-performing. The main reason is seen as the lack of attention from Ethiopia’s federal government. On one level the government’s commitment to improving infrastructure, building roads and constructing new regional airports, has facilitated the movement of visitors. However, the absence of a well-defined tourism development strategy, has created a vacuum at the heart of Ethiopia’s tourism sector. Alone among neighbouring and competitor countries, Ethiopia does not have a Minister of Tourism.
In recent years the government has made a number of strategic interventions to solve the problems facing developers and investors in sectors such as coffee, leather, textiles and horticulture, with meetings chaired by the Prime Minister himself. There have been no such developments with the tourism sector. In Ethiopia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper prepared in 2003, the role of tourism was summed up in a few generalities and one paragraph.
However, there are now, signs of change. In August last year, seven tourism related associations presented a paper to the government calling for a public private forum in which the problems facing the sector could be addressed. It stressed the opportunities tourism presented for economic development, job creation and poverty reduction throughout the country.
Although the initial impetus for reform has come from within the country, support, and the crucial promise of funds, is now coming from two sources, the International Think Tank of “Friends of Ethiopia” and the World Bank.
With the prospect of their help, there is a new feeling of confidence among stake holders in the sector, and a belief that Ethiopia’s huge tourist potential is finally about to be realised. Most of the sector, from Ethiopian Airlines, to tour companies and hotels, remains within Ethiopian hands so the massive expatriation of profits that characterise tourism in much of Africa will not be the case here. And the creation of direct and indirect employment throughout the economy that a tourist boom will bring will reduce poverty. Hopefully, the Live Aid image of Ethiopia’s poverty could soon be history.
SOURCE – www.developments.org.uk
