Review on Trends of Ecotourism Development in Ethiopia

Ecotourism is “a force within the industry that, in its very essence, aims to minimize tourism’s negative impacts whilst maximizing tourism’s positive impacts”. Whilst smaller in scale than external effects such as energy prices and terrorism, ecotourism represents a relatively large internal intervention in the global tourism industry, and one which has now been continued for an extended period. This provides analytical opportunities from the perspectives of tourism policy and tourism entrepreneurship. Ecotourism, a recent but widely hailed tourism alternative, has high potential to be an instrument for rural economic development and environmental conservation in Ethiopia. Therefore, the government of Ethiopia has recognized development and promotion of ecotourism and provided consultancy services for a number of potential developers of ecotourism sites. Ecotourism, a recent but widely hailed tourism alternative, has high potential to be an instrument for rural economic development and environmental conservation. Role tourism plays in poverty reduction and natural resource management in Ethiopia. Although not satisfactory, the trend of ecotourism development in Ethiopia is developing from past to present. Increasing the awareness of local communities in and around attraction area towards ecotourism or nature tourism is very important. Keywords: Ecotourism, Development, Protected area, Ethiopia