Ethiopia Tourism Industry: Undisturbed by Ongoing Conflict & Pandemic?

Ethiopia is one of the leading tourist destinations on the continent, with figures of 2019, before the outbreak of Covid 19, showing total arrival figures of 812 000 non-resident visitors. The country’s tourist arrivals grew from 136, 000 in 2000 to 812000 in 2019 (10.37%). The prospects of growth have been analyzed against a background of conflicts, generally associated with economic disturbances as people tend to avoid the destination. Against this background, there has been a lot of talk of how the Tigray conflict will likely impact the Ethiopian hospitality, travel, and tourism industry. Our Contributor, attempts to shed some light on the tourism situation in that country. Experts say that the recent outbreaks of conflicts have worsened a situation that had been simmering, though the country has had a long history of stop-start conflicts over the years. One of these is Professor Asnake Kefale, an Ethiopian academic whose research is in Political Science, Africa, Ethiopia, and who referred to the conflict as ‘evolving”. He said that the travel and tourism industry was already suffering from Covid and the conflict came in and as a result, it was “difficult to associate the declining number of tourists to the conflict alone – as already, the numbers of tourists have already severely declined due to the conflict.” In his view, although the conflict was concentrated in the northern parts of Ethiopia, it was likely to negatively impact the local hospitality, travel, and tourism industry of Ethiopia in some way! “The conflict in…

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