Potentials and Challenges of Promoting Bunno Bedelele Zone Major Tourism Destinations, South Western Ethiopia

Habib Bati Geda

doi:10.7176/jths/52-01

Abstract

Ethiopia in general and Bunno Bedelle Zone in particular, is rich in both natural and cultural tourism resources. Conversely, it’s economic, socio-cultural and environmental role is insignificant due to problems mainly related to the lack of infrastructural development and marketing of the destination. In order to make tourism development more sustainable, it is important to look into the problems associated with promoting and marketing of the tourist destinations. Thus, as to achieve the objective of the study a mixed research methodology was implemented. Since the aim of this study was to assess the potentials and Challenges of promoting Bunno Bedelle Zone major tourism destinations site. The research was typically descriptive in nature. In this study, both primary and secondary data was gathered. The data was collected through extensive, questionnaire, interview, focus group discussion, and field observation. The collected data were coded, processed and analyzed with the help of SPSS. The finding of the study demonstrated that the promotional activities of Bunno Bedelle Zone failed to meet their ultimate goal to become an important tourist destination because of limitation in community capacity building in tourism concept, lack of expertise in the area to develop ecotourism and lack of basic infrastructure like absence of adequate transport facilities, communication facilities, health care facilities ,accommodation service, Above all, awareness problems, and lack of cooperation between stakeholders aggravated problems which prevent sustainability. To establish the ecotourism and minimizing the challenges of tourist destinations, there should be broader awareness creation program for the wider communities to develop community sense of ownership for their own resource and further investigations is needed to identify and promote the potential tourism resources of the areas. Keywords: Tourism potentials, Promotion, Tourism destinations, Bunno Beddele Zone, Ethiopia. DOI: 10.7176/JTHS/52-01 Publication date: December 31 st 2020

Highlights

1.1Background of the study The travel and tourism industry are globally becoming an increasingly expanding area and is the most important economic catalyst in many countries
The rational for selecting Bunno Bedelle Zone was the presence of various natural and cultural potential resource for ecotourism development .Purposive sampling techniques was used to select target populations from officials working in the Zone and Woredas Culture and Tourism offices, none governmental development bodies, local communities elders, and destination managers of the study areas for the interview and FGDs
The issues discussed include the potential resource for ecotourism and challenges of promoting ecotourism potentials of the areas., role of government and community to develop ecotourism in the study area,weather community has been taken any training concerning awareness creations program and biodiversity issues in general and ecotourism in particular were some of the points discussed with the community during study period . 3.2.2.3

Summary

Introduction

1.1Background of the study The travel and tourism industry are globally becoming an increasingly expanding area and is the most important economic catalyst in many countries. Over the past six decades, tourism has continued to expand and is, according to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO, 2015), one of the largest and fastest growing economic sectors in the world with an estimated number of 1,087 million international tourist arrivals in 2013, with a growth of 5% over the previous year. International tourist receipts grew to US$ 1159 billion in 2013 It is the largest employment generator worldwide with 1in 11 jobs in the service industries. Africa’s share from total international tourist arrivals and receipts as of 2013 is only 5% and 3%, respectively (UNWTO, 2015). The total number of tourist arrivals in Ethiopia in 2012 was 596,000 which is more than four times smaller than the number in neighboring Kenya, 1,619,000 (UNWTO, 2015)

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Conclusion