Ethiopia has announced plans to attract around one million tourists by 2010, which is currently poor compared to the country’s tourism attraction sites.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that a new strategy has been designed to double the number of tourists to Ethiopia, home to around 80 million people.

Ethiopia’s Culture and Tourism Minister, Ambassador Mohamud Dirir said that currently the number of tourists visiting the country is less than half a million.

Dirir indicated the number of tourists who visited the country in 2009 was 412,341, obtaining $211.5 million in revenue.

However this revenue is expected to be double in the coming ten years plan.

Ethiopia has unique sites to attract tourists and eight of its heritages are inscribed by UNESCO as world heritage sites.

“Expansion of infrastructure development has a significant contribution to the development of tourism industry in the country. To this end, the government has given prime attention to private sector and now the number of hotels, lodges, and tour operators is increasing,” said Dirir.

Various projects are currently being carried out to expand the tourism industry with $35 million loan obtained from the World Bank in 2009.

Source African Press Agency

African News from NetNewsPublisher.com

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