Tourism and Hospitality in Ethiopia's Development Agenda: Action for Sustainable Economic Growth

Introduction

People travel. They move for many purposes. I travel for many personal, national and international purposes of circumstantial natures. As moving, we plan and implement. We also spend money. We spend fair amounts of money for air, water, and land transports. We also use the money to dine, shelter and recreate. Comfort is what every traveler/tourist needs. People can also pay for extra services of a variety of many destinations. Tourists and travelers my buy goods and services to their demand from the availabilities. In the process, financial transactions become the major practices and events in each tourist spot. As people move, they move with money; then they buy and sell properties of the inter-mare needs. When people get enough money, they begin to aspire for new changes. They construct roads, buildings, and bridges. They also modify each construction to meet people demands of a time. The buy or build new and best hospitality service deliveries. They renovate old types to meet new needs. They also begin to train new staff equipped with contemporary knowledge/skills and technology. They also install the best technology gadgets and applications. Enshrined development endeavors in tourism and hospitality cannot be delivered by few people though assumed to be highly skilled and experienced. It is a corroboration of many stakeholders—a transdisciplinary job. The lions share should be taken by the government for operative ownership and facilitation of public services and tourist attractions, for setting up sustainable and efficacious regulatory policies and mechanisms. The roles the private sectors could play are also immense. They can always create links among the government sectors, the non-government organizations, tourists, and individual operators of non-interaction nature. With a sole intention to make a profit out of competent tourism and hospitality operation, they can always scale up the quality (attractive and refurbished) of the operation and the infrastructure.

Ethiopians are known for their hospitality; they are polite, considerate, punctual, deliberately empathic, apologetic, affectionately smiling, minding their manners, beautiful and emotionally intelligent to bring multiple perspectives together. Their moral value is immeasurable. Ethiopia has the oldest history in the universe. Archeologists proved that the oldest human nature and the mother/father gene existed some 10 million years ago in Ethiopia Africa. Lucy or Denqenesh—“you are splendid or amazing”, is confirmed by archaeologists as the “true” and modern mother of the world. So 70 million years back from Lucy, there were abled mothers and fathers of world. The geography, topography, fauna, flora, and spatial gifts of Ethiopia gave the splendor advantages of tourism and hospitality business operation at zero level of fear and regret. Ethiopia has been visited by many people from around the globe for political, religious, business, material and intellectual advantages. Missionaries lead these categorical number. All religious sects put their feet on the land of Ethiopians to disseminate their ideologies. Many missionaries came to Ethiopia for various socio-political and economic undertakings. During the caravan and barter trading periods, thousand and millions of merchants have either crossed or exchanged with and stayed in Ethiopia. Numerous explorers, authors, artists, government advisors, consulates, soldiers, and tourists of assorted reasons have visited Ethiopia. It has been proved by the international world that many of these people have enjoyed the highest level of Ethiopians’ hospitality.

Taking classified and perspectival issues of tourism and hospitality, this chapter critically sees trans-disciplinary issues of thought and action of subjects—agents/actors in the state-society interactive system (the virtual state system from the dynamism). The major objective of this chapter is to show what and how thoughts and actions on tourism and hospitality could be framed and taken to boost their contributions to Ethiopia’s sustainable growth and development. The critical analysis takes the centre and the fringe of (philosophical) ideas that matter most in strives for commendable change and transformation for sustainable socio-economic growth and development.