In spite of a long history of promotion and development, Ethiopia�s tourism industry is in its initial stages of\ndevelopment. Changes in governance systems have resulted in different social constructions of the role of tourism in\nnational development. Since 1990s, the partial opening up of the economy to private investment, the liberalization of\nnational economic management and a modicum of political decentralization of administration and decision-making\nhave contributed to significant growth in both the number of inbound tourists and the generation of foreign exchange.\nThis research examines the opportunities and challenges of tourism development in the Upper Rift Valley corridor\nextending from Addis Ababa, the capital city, to Nazret-Sodere, Shashemene-Hawasa and Debre Berhan-Ankober.\nBased on field visits and semi-structured interviews of key private-public stakeholders and archival research, the\nstudy argues that the corridor has tremendous opportunities for developing a spatial/geographical pattern of tourist\ndestinations ranging from single destinations, to en-route, base camp, regional tour and trip chasing ones.
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