Ethiopian Informer
ADDIS ABABA: September 27 (EI) – The Ethiopian government has unveiled a draft ten-year tourism strategy that aimed to boost the number of tourists to the East African country, with particular emphasis given to exploiting the potential of conference tourism.
The ambitious 10-year national tourism strategy, dubbed Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE), was unveiled on Thursday by Tourism Ethiopia – an Ethiopian government agency that was established to push the country’s aspiration in luring foreign tourists.
According to Tourism Ethiopia, the strategy mainly involves a ten-year Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) as well as a four-year stopover tourism plan that aimed to advance competitiveness in Ethiopia’s tourism sector.
Tourism Ethiopia CEO, Seleshi Girma, said during a workshop that was organized to validate the new strategy on Thursday that the draft strategy documents were prepared with technical support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group.
According to Girma, the strategies are prepared with an aim to transform “Ethiopia as one of the top stopover and MICE tourism center in the African continent.”
The newly unveiled two strategies, among other things, were drafted with consideration of various existing opportunities and challenges of stopover and MICE tourism in the East African country, it was noted.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MoCT), in April this year, had disclosed more than 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in revenue from foreign tourists that have visited the country during the past nine months period.
Ethiopia has eight cultural sites registered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizational Organization (UNESCO), which includes the obelisks of Aksum, Fasil Ghebbi or the castle of Gonder, the fortified historic town Harar Jugol, Konso cultural landscape, the Lower Valley of the Awash, Lower Valley of the Omo, Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, and Tiya.
The country has also one natural endowment registered by UNESCO, the mountainous Simien National Park in the northern part of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, known for hosting various international and regional organizations including the African Union (AU) headquarters and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA), is also another growing tourist attraction places in the country.
