Tamirat Tefera (PhD)Sofya Tsegaye2024-07-232024-07-232023-10https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/3295This thesis focuses on assessing the role of museum for tourism development: the case of Bilalul Habeshi Community Museum. The study employed descriptive research design in line with qualitative led mixed research approach .Both primary and secondary data were employed as a source of data. Interview, questionnaire, and observation were data collection instruments. For questioner, 132 domestic and international visitors were selected by using convenience sampling technique and 7 key informants (museum manager, employee, founder of the museum, volunteers, and Addis Ababa Culture, Arts and Tourism Bureau expertise) were selected using purposive sampling method based on their concern, responsibility, knowledge and participation in the museum additionally 6 informants from visitors were interviewed and data were collected from 145 total respondents. The collected quantitative data were processed using SPSS version 24 and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The qualitative data were analyzed by thematic analysis. Finding of the study reveals that Bilalul Habeshi Community Museum has Islamic cultural, historical and religious heritage collections that represent Ethiopian Islamic community and it have potential to attract visitors, especially for Muslim community it is an important tourist site in the city because of its uniqueness in terms of holding Islamic heritage collections and it plays a significant role for tourism the development of tourism and attracting considerable number of visitors. Although with in short period of journey Bilalul Habeshi Community Museum plays a significant role in terms of promoting Islamic heritages, awareness creation about Islamic heritage, change misconception of Islamic heritage, education and research center, enjoyment, additional tourist site for the city and contribute for the development of tourism in the city. However there are common challenges as other museums faces such as carrying capacity and space for storing and displaying the collected heritage , promotion and as a finding shows that promotion and marketing activity is weak the museum have their own web site but the platform is not properly applicable and information are not timely updated ,information are not clearly express the potential of the museum and majority of museum visitors were got information from family, friends and colleges , organizational structure, location or accessibility and seasonality or event based tourist flow are major challenges that reduces the contribution of the museum. Finally the researcher concluded that, because of its unique heritage collection the museum has considerable potential for tourism development in Addis Ababa city as well as Ethiopia. Therefore the researcher forwarded recommendations; implementing well planned promotion and marketing strategy practices for increasing the contribution of the museum. Federal and Addis Ababa city government authority should be informed the relevance of collecting Islamic heritage and give due attention for them and as much as possible their support should be continued and government should consider the carrying capacity problem and as much as possible facilitate the expansion of the museum by giving a piece of land and for the future museum expansion the location of the place should be considered to mitigate location and accessibility challenge and to be easily accessible for visitor .For organization structure problem the financial issue of the museum should be separate from other social activity of Bilal center and managed by the museum itself. To mitigate the above challenges and for better performance of the museum stakeholders should be integrated and work with museum families.enMuseumtourism developmentchallengeroleIslamic heritageThesis