Challenges of Tourism Destination Development in the Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia.

The main objective of this study was to identify the major challenges hampering destination development in the Amhara Region. For the purpose of collecting, presenting and analyzing data for this study, a crosssectional study design with qualitative and quantitative approaches has been used. The researchers used both primary and secondary sources of data. The target populations were selected using purposive sampling from government officials, tourism experts of different levels, private tourism businesses, and local community leaders in Gondar, Bahir Dar, Debark (SMNP) and Lalibela. Self-administered structured questionnaires, an in-depth open-ended and semi-structured interview, focus group discussion, observation checklists and document consultations were employed for data collection. The collected data from the various sources were analyzed and synthesized to draw inferences and make conclusions using both the qualitative and quantitative approach. Of the total respondents more than fifty-five percent either strongly agreed or agreed on the existence of current destination challenges such as poor community participation in tourist destination area; lack of benefit sharing; the lack of knowledge about the importance of tourism by a large segment of the society, problems in trained staffs and employees in tourism development. Moreover, destruction of natural resources in destination, lack of funding for tourism development, and resource competition from other sectors, less priority given for tourism investment, insufficient investment incentives, and lack of policy support were the major challenges in the four destination areas. Based on the analysis, we can conclude that major tourist destination in Amhara Regional State has been challenged by different factors including inter alia, low levels of community participation, lack of community leadership and good governance, lack of stakeholders collaboration, tourism resources degradation, low/lack incentive to tourism investment, poor tourist facility and infrastructure and weak policy implementation. Therefore, it is recommended that the government bodies and other tourism sector stakeholders give special attention supporting initiatives aimed at reducing all challenges