Bringing women to the spotlight

Travel Ethiopia hosted an event on Saturday March 26, 2022 that took place at Gola Park St George Gallery under the theme ‘creating awareness on domestic tourism’.
Hirut Kassaw, Head of Addis Ababa Culture, Arts and Tourism Bureau, Aster Solomon President of Addis Ababa Hotels Associations and other invited guests attended the event.
Brief discussion was held between participants on the development of the hospitality and tourism sector. As tourism plays a very important role in the political, economic, cultural and environmental development of countries. Additionally participants has said the positive side of the role the tourism sector plays saying that it is a foreign currency earner. The sector is also one of the most employment generator.
The participants said that local tourism is expensive and everyone cannot afford it, so the concerned stakeholders should do something to promote local tourism economically.
Hirut Kassaw said that her office and the Mayor will together with the tour operators and support them in any way they can.
Aster Solomon said that there are 176 hotels in Addis Ababa and many hotels suffered from the effects of Covid. She added that people do a lot of religious visits but underscored the need to also start travelling to visit local tourist attractions.
Ashenafi Kassa, Tour Guides Association President also said that there are 200 guides where 15 are women tour guides. He said that the industry is highly affected and businesses is really shut for the past years due to Covid and then above all that the security of the country deteriorated significantly making it impossible for the association members to get a job.
Besides creating awareness about tourism the day also celebrated two young bold women on the occasion of women’s international month inspiring excellence of women who went against all the odds.
One of them is Meron Fikadu who lost her leg when she was 16. Then she caught lung cancer. It was said that all she wanted was to have a child and against all odds she delivered a baby boy.
The other Meron Kebede is also a cancer survivor. She came back from the US to support women suffering from breast cancer in Ethiopia.
Travel Ethiopia is a private, eco-minded tour and safari operator established in 1994. Its vast experience allows Travel Ethiopia to introduce the traveler to the myriad facets of Ethiopia’s past and present. Its two directors have extensive experience in tourism. Samrawit Moges has directed tours throughout the country since 1981.