Ethiopia to attract more tourists from China

The country in the Horn of Africa aims to use digital technology in order to boost tourism among Chinese travellers.

Oromia Tourism Commission’s initiative named "Visit Oromia - Google Arts and Culture" aims at promoting the region's attractions among Chinese tourists, in partnership with selected tourism experts from China. The new website was recently launched during Tourism and Technology Week event aiming to bring together key partners across the tourism industry.

Oromia Tourism Commissioner Lelise Dhugaa declared that the cross-cultural collaboration efforts are starting to payoff by the already increasing number of tourists in the area.

"We are collaborating with Chinese tour operators and language experts to promote our tourist destinations and attract more Chinese tourists to Ethiopia in particular to the Oromia region," Dhugaa commented.

"We are using a digital technology, the first of its kind in Ethiopia, to promote the nation's food, costumes and touristic destinations among others.

"We have a very good partnership with our Chinese brothers and we have also launched Visit Oromia on Chinese social media platforms under the brand 'Land of Origin' aiming at exploiting China's growing tourism market. [...]

"With its over 1.3 billion population and growing economy, China is becoming a potential tourism market for Ethiopia," the Commissioner added.

At the same time, Sileshi Girma, state minister of Tourism in charge of developing tourism destinations in Ethiopia, noted that China, Africa and the Middle East are the ideal markets to promote Ethiopia's iconic tourist attractions, while digital technology could be an essential helping tool in the process of developing the tourism and hospitality sectors.

"China is becoming a core market. It is no longer a potential market because we have started receiving more clients from China. Hence, we also have Chinese language speaking tour guides and restaurants in Addis Ababa and beyond," Girma declared.

The Oromia region of Ethiopia is home to Lake Wonchi, awarded the best tourist village of 2021 title by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), amazingly rich wildlife, as well as unique historical and cultural heritages.

According to official data, Ethiopia’s revenue from Chinese tourists accounted for 157 million U.S. dollars during 2019, as most travellers from China have chosen the country for both business and leisure trips.

Ethiopia's tourism sector was severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and digital technology is seen here as a potential way to overcome the tourism-related challenging situation. Nevertheless, lack of financing, high costs of the technology and high-speed broadband, rapid switches in tech resources are making related advancements very difficult.

 

Source: traveldailynews.asia