Role of Orthodox Churches in Tourism Development of Ethiopia: The Case of Addis Alem St. Mary Church

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Date

2019-06

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

This study investigates tourism at Debre Tsyon St.Mary Church of Addis Alem. The thesis examines three key objectives: exploring tourism attraction of the church, exploring and examining the existing role of the church in tourist attraction, and identifying the major challenges which hinder tourism development in the church. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher made a systematic and extensive review of related literature and employed a mix of qualitative and survey methods.The mixed approach was used in the hope that it can improve the validity of the findings and successfully address the central research questions. Data was collected from 363 self-administered questionnaire respondents, made observation, and conducted semi structured interview with 19 key informants. Descriptive methods of qualitative and quantitative data analysis was employed and used SPSS version 24 to describe frequency distribution and percentage.The church administration, local government officials, local communities, visitors of the church and the museum and also the school found in the town participated in giving data to this research. This research found that Addis Alem St.Mary church has great tourism potential. The key tourism attractions are the natural and historical attractions which include the historical value of the church as such, the landscape, the arctchtural planning of the church, the paintings of the church, the bell tower, the museum and its collections, the timket festival of the church, the religious school of the church, the forest around the church and the holy water. The other finding is that in light of immense tourism resources of the church, tourism in the area is not sufficinetly developed apart from some social, economic, educational, and religious contributions. The research showed that there are different factors that hinder tourism development in the area. These are lack of promotion, lack of awareness, lack of integration, lack of standard museum, lack of tourist facility, lack of infrastructure, the problem of administration and absence of community involvement and participation in tourism businesses, and absence of promotional activities and lack of knowledge about tourism and its benefits lack of risk management mechanisms.The thesis concluded that since there are immense tourism resources in the church, and the church is locted near Addis Ababa and the surroundings of the church itself have many tourism resources discussed in the thesis, it is important to unleash the tourism potential for the beneift of the local community, the church itself and the country at large.

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Keywords

Addis Alem Church, Tourism attractions, challenges, Ethiopian

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