Factors Hindering Tourism Industry Development: Gambella People's National Regional State, South West Ethiopia

Abstract

Tourism is a circulation of people who travel to or stay in places outside their home country. It has being believed as a major ingredient in the economic development strategy. However, various external and internal factors have been affecting the sustainable development of the tourism industry worldwide. Although Ethiopia possesses numerous natural, religious, historical, non-natural and cultural tourism attractions, economic contribution and its potential are incomparable. Shortage of tourist facilities, lack of skillful human resources, weak promotion, lack of integration and political will are the major negatively contributing forces. Although Ethiopia possesses massive tourism development potentials with its unique biodiversity and spectacular topographic features, its economic contribution to the country is unmatched. Similarly Gambella Region has endowed with tourism potentials. But, its tourism industry development is in an infant stage. Nevertheless a limited study has done in identifying factors hindering the development of the tourism industry in the region. Hence, the current research addresses above stated problem. To do so, key informants from three zones (n=15), five regional offices (n=23) and 13 wored as (n=65) has purposively selected based on the set criteria. Altogether, 103 key informants were being interviewed besides to focus group discussion and field observation. Collected raw data were being chosen, refined, categorized, edited, evaluated, coded and entered into SPSS software version 20.