In Tourism, more needs to be done

Before I came to USA, I had the opportunity to practice medicine in Axum, Ethiopia. During my 4 year stay there, I met many tourists and chat with them regarding tourism in Ethiopia. As there were few to fill the gap of leading tourists in this historic site, I will not be exaggerating if I say that I spent my free time guiding tourist. My observation from those times fits very well with the comment Mr. G. E. Gorfu put in here and I could not help it but write my feeling.

Despite its imminent historic place in Ethiopian culture, tourism in Axum was primitive and essentially none existent. There was no tourism office which is stuffed by educated English speaking tour organizers. There were few private tour leaders but they were ill equipped, minimally trained and with little detail knowledge of this historic site. In my tour with those few showed me that most of what they explain is either false or can be historically challenged. They have no or extremely few reference books. Tourists who have hired them to guide them have in many occasions returned disappointed by the crude information they got or total lack of knowledge of the issue. There are no shops where you can buy maps of historical sites once you are in Axum. For that matter, I have never seen any pocket size map published by Ethiopia showing those historic sites with little explanation as to the history. No place to shop artifacts or memorabilia of those sites. No one selling Axumite baseball cap, T-shirts or any thing for that matter. Tourists are essentially on their own. There is no explanation that you can read as to when those historical stones were excavated, by whom and what the historical background of those sites is. Some of those historic carved stones were not even fully excavated let alone transported to a place where it is easy to visit. No place to sit after hiking the mountains to visit some of the sites. No coffee shop or cultural center at each or most sites. For some it is just going to those sites and looking at carved stones with essentially little meaning. Much is missing.

I always wonder what the root of all this problem is. Overall economic strength of the country is something that is mentioned as a reason often times but I think that is not all. What about creativity of us? What about private investment? The government should encourage and invest financially in individuals who work in developing those sites to make them “tourist friendly”.

Our Universities also have a responsibility. Why are we not producing history experts in Axum, Lalibella, Gondar, Jimma and the like? Linguistics, history and literature graduates from universities should be encouraged to research, write and develop those sites. Financial incentives to universities and graduates who work in such a project and are willing to reside in those sites will benefit the country in the long run. This can be a life time work for graduates who will be experts in one or many of those sites.

We have to convince tourists and tour organizers that a trip to Ethiopia is a trip worth going. After all, many tourists decide where to go by what they hear from friends, families or tour organizers. Unless we work hard to develop those sites to make them tourist friendly, the chance of sharing the financial wealth in the booming tourist industry is just a dream. Let us learn from Kenya and Egypt.

Dawd S. Siraj, Jan 04,2007

sirajd@ecu.edu