In Ethiopia, tourism generated a record $3.5 billion in 2015 against $2.9 billion in 2014, thus soaring 20.7% according to data published on July 13 by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

This amount exceeds cumulated revenues of the sector in Kenya and Tanzania. Tourism in the two neighboring touristic destinations indeed generated over the past year a total of $2.77 billion.

The growth in tourism revenues in Ethiopia mainly results from an increase in the number of tourist visitors to 910,000 in 2015 from 774,000 the year before.

Ethiopia which counts nine sites considered as world heritage by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), plans to become one of the five most visited touristic destinations in Africa tripling its number of visitors to 2.5 million, by 2020.

According to data from the World Bank, tourism currently represents 4.5% of Ethiopia’s GDP and creates about a million jobs.