Religious Tourism Development in Ethiopia: Challenges and Opportunities at Adyame Yordanos Wonkshet St. Gabriel Monastery

Religious tourism is one of the fastest growing types of tourism in the world where many religious sites are endowed with lots of potentials for helping the religious tourism development and Ethiopia is one of them. Though the country is the home of religious potentials, its challenges and opportunities have not been fully unexploited as yet. Thus, this study stands with the aim of assessing the challenges and opportunities for religious tourism development in the case of Adyame Yordanos Wonkshet Monastery, Ethiopia. For this study, qualitative research approach was followed to collect data and descriptive design was employed. The target populations were the tourism experts in the zone and district, South Gondar Zone diocese, Aferwanat diocese leaders, the monastery leaders and monks. 25 respondents were selected through purposive sampling. Primary sources were gathered from interview, focus group discussion & field observation and secondary source were from different documents thereby thematic analysis was undertaken. Findings indicated that the challenges explored at the monastery include thefts and robbery, insufficient land, lack of infrastructure, parking problem, loss of spirituality, unskilled experts and unity and coordination problems. Opportunities include the growing number of religious tourists, technological advancement, cured religious tourists from their mental and physical illness, the Blue Nile Fall & Blue Nile Camp and Government policy. Therefore, the tourism stakeholders should be integrated together to use potentials; solve challenges through examining opportunities for ensuring religious tourism development in the monastery. Key words: challenge, opportunity, religions tourism, monastery DOI: 10.7176/JTHS/40-0