Tourism sector of Ethiopia missed its target for the first 9 months of the current fiscal year by only generating 2.7 billion USD from 712,111 tourist.

Director of Tourism Sector Stakeholder’s Relations Directorate at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MoCT), Sisay Teklu, explained the target was to generate 6 billion USD and 6 million more visitors. Yet it was only able to attain close to 3 billion USD.

Also in a related news, MoCT with its just concluded star rating program, under which it evaluated 359 hotels, gave 100 hotels 0 stars.

Commenting on the matter Sisay said, out of the 359 hotels 139 of the hotels were found in Addis Ababa. Out of these 75 of them are star rated while 26 of them are found to be below star rating standards. The rest, 38 hotels, have also been star rated but remain undisclosed due to some irregularities the hotels ought to address.

According to The Reporter it is Oromia State that stands next to the capital with 70 hotels but out of which only 20 hotels received star rates. There are 32 hotels which are expected to comply with different criteria.

In addition to the nation’s capital and Oromia, Dire Dawa City and Harari State are on the waiting list to have rating for their 46 and 3 hotels respectively.

Source: The Reporter