Ethiopia earned USD 2 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year by attracting 504,840 foreign tourists. During the six months, in addition to tourists who came to explore the country, foreign tourism was also seen in international conferences and business visits.

Ethiopia also secured Birr 44 billion from domestic tourism in the same period. According to the Ministry of Tourism (MoT), the Ministry has signed memorandums of understanding with various regional tourism bureaus with a view to reviving domestic tourism. It has also provided a number of packages to attract foreign and domestic tourists. In this regard, Benyam Asrat, Head of Domestic Tourism Promotion Desk at the MoT said that the Ministry had provided marketing activities that helped improve tourism.

In December 2022 MoT unveiled various services to improve the tourism sector of the country. Accordingly, it introduced a mobile application called Visit Ethiopia, a smart card service named Tourist Smart Card, and an application called Guzo which enables users to save money for tours at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.

Visit Ethiopia enables tourists to share their destinations and visit in Ethiopia while Tourist Smart Card allows foreign tourists to pay for hotels, car rentals, and travel agency expenses online.

Tourist destination and infrastructure development and destination marketing are some of the major focus areas of the Ministry of Tourism. The Ministry’s website states that the Ministry works to identify gaps and carry out major interventions in the development of tourism, infrastructure, roads, utilities, hotels, and visitor centers. In addition, the Ministry carries out market research and insight-gathering activities to develop destination brands and lead and engage in the marketing, promotion, and public relations of the destinations. 

Source: The Ethiopian Herald, Ethiopian News Agency, and the Ministry of Tourism