Ethiopia gearing to become Africa’s top tourism spot

Addis Ababa -During the past two decades, Ethiopia’s ambitious economic initiatives to become middle income country managed to progressively grow and develop its economy. The country has given ample focus to sectors like tourism increasing their GDP contribution to the entire economic key factors.

Addressing the country development shortfalls and poverty reduction initiatives has grabbed the nation attention working on better policies improving infrastructural constraints. Among other sectors tourism received ample attention preserving historical sights and developing infrastructure which has been the biggest setback of the industry.

Although the sector has been improving significantly for the past five years, according to the first quarter report of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the recent security alert has led the country to lose seven million dollars from the industry. However the rising number of tourists and the progressive lift of security alerts is rescuing the country to recover from its loss. 

The economic progress of developing countries which has been contributing for the global economic growth for the past ten years has been the focus for global poverty reduction and wealth sharing mission to take developing counters out of poverty.

The World Bank says over 40% of the global poor population live in developing countries where growth during the 2015 fiscal year has been low. To rectify this problem, developing countries “should focus on building resilience to a weaker economic environment and shielding the most vulnerable. The benefits from reforms to governance and business conditions are potentially large and could help offset the effects of slow growth in larger economies.” Jim Yong Kim World Bank President said.

Public investment, consumer spending, and mining production is expected to grow Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Tanzania sustaining rapid growth having the highest increases according to the World Bank Group economic analysis report. The World Bank Group and Jumia Travel economic progress reports noted that Ethiopia had registered substantive growth in the past and predict it will continue to register growth in the coming years as well. Certainly, Ethiopia has been registering double digit economic growth due to the rising public investment and foreign direct investment and booming manufacturing and construction that helped the country to sustain its growth from all sectors.

During the last fiscal year the Ministry of Culture and Tourism crafted a transformational plan aiming to triple number of overseas travelers to over 2 million in the coming four years to become the continent top destination. The country has been going through huge transformation procedures to increase its revenue from the tourism sector in the coming year. Presently, Ethiopian tourism makes about 2.9 billion dollars annually creating close to a million jobs covering about 4.5% of the GDP.

Several reports has been supporting Ethiopia’s ambitious mission to make the country one of the top destination in the world. “Ethiopia can be one of the five leading countries for tourist destinations in Africa, if it properly implements its Sustainable Tourism Master Plan by 2020”says Dr. Ray Muntida, Advisor to the IGAD Sustainable Tourism Master Plan.

(Eden Sahle can be reached at   eden.sahle@jumia.com)