Buhe Festival in Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church for Event Tourism Development: the case of Debre Tabor and its surroundings

Buhe festival is also called Debre Tabor festival. It is one of the most famous intangible cultural heritage events in Ethiopia. It was only a few decades ago that event tourism became established in both the tourism industry and in the research community, so that subsequent growth of this sector can only be described as spectacular. The festival is becoming highly celebrated at Debre Tabor town, Ethiopia. However, its potential, value and opportunities haven’t been studied so far. Thus, the objective of the study is to explore the practices of safeguarding Buhe festival for event tourism development. The study used descriptive research design and employed a qualitative approach. The target population were religious leaders, culture and tourism experts, the local community and the researchers themselves. Data instruments were interviews, observation and secondary data like document analysis. The collected data were analysed through thematic analysis method. Findings revealed that Buhe festival in Debre Tabor is endowed with immense potential in the form of cultural treasures, Debre Tabor Mountain, traditional songs with awesome poems, local traditional costumes, religious ceremonies, ancient history, religious institutions and others. The main values of the festival are socio-cultural, but also economic, creating a good image of the destination and its historical and religious values. Further opportunities include the use of Gafat Industrial villages and the ancient palace of Emperor Yohannes IV, celebrating the birth date of Menelik the Second and his beloved wife, and increased government attention for event tourism. Generally, tourism and its related stakeholders should work together to explore the potentials of the festival, to use the values of the festival and to strength the opportunities it is endowed with for the sake of event tourism development at the study area

Examining of the Factors, Effects and Mechanisms to Combat Females and Children Business at the City of Bahirdar, Ethiopia

Sex business is one of the fastest growing businesses. Currently no sites can be immune or free from such business. The objectives of the study are to assess the factors, effects and mechanisms of combating females from sex business. Snow ball sampling technique was chosen. The findings showed that poverty, lack job opportunity, peer pressure, modernization and migration were the main motivating factors. Whereas the effects of participating at the sex business were transmitting disease like HIV AIDS, feeling loneness and losing moral values, creating bad images of the destination and the country at large. The mechanisms suggested through the respondents where cooperation of the stakeholders, establish laws, rules, regulations and policies to prevent the practices, creating awareness to the victims’ families, to the general public of the destinations. Generally, the stakeholders should be stand together to stop such practices to save females and children. Keywords: sex business, effects, motivating factors, Bahirdar DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/9-3-0

An Investigating the Sex Business of Females and Children at the Tourist Destination Site (Sex Tourism): The Case of Bahirdar City, Ethiopia

Sex tourism business is one of the fastest growing practices at most of the tourist destinations area in the world. Currently no tourists’ destination sites can be immune or free from such business. The objectives of the study are to assess the factors which motivate females and children to involve to the business, to examine the impacts of the sex tourism business and to indicate the mechanisms to combat the practice. The target populations were police mans receptionists, tourist guides, females and children who are participating at the business, culture and tourism experts, taxi and Bajaj drivers. To get the right respondents, the researcher used a non probability sampling technique which was basically snow ball sampling techniques. Thus, the researcher used 25 respondents. The data instrument techniques were Focus Group Discussion, field observation, in-depth interview, document analysis.  The findings showed that poverty, lack job opportunity, peer pressure, modernization and migration were the main motivating factors. Whereas the effects of participating at the sex tourism business were transmitting disease like HIV AIDS, feeling loneness and losing moral values, creating bad images of the destination and the country at large. The mechanisms suggested through the respondents where cooperation of the stakeholders, establish laws, rules, regulations and policies to prevent the practices, creating awareness to the victims’ families, to the general public of the destinations. Generally the stakeholders should be stand together to stop such practices to save the bright futures of the females and children in Ethiopia. Keywords: sex tourism, tourism, effects, motivating factors, Bahirda

Management Issues and the Values of Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage for Cultural Tourism Development: The Case of Ashendye Festival, Lalibela, Ethiopia

Ashendye festival is one of the famous intangible cultural heritages, which is found and celebrated in the northern parts of Ethiopia specifically in Lalibela and its surrounding. Since Ashendye intangible cultural heritage is the ancient festivals of the destination and can provide a lot of values for the local communities, government, and tourism industries, using, conserving and passing it to the next generation sustainably is a crucial issue. The objectives of this study were investigating the values of safeguarding Ashendye festival for cultural tourism development and to examine its management issues to assure cultural tourism development at the destination. The target populations were the religious fathers, tourism and culture experts, local guides, tourist information center, souvenirs shops and local community of the destination. Descriptive research design was employed. Both quantitative approach and qualitative approach was chosen to undertake the study. Non probability sampling was employed to get the right respondents. Thus, 110 respondents were chosen through purposely sampling techniques. Finding showed that issues of globalization and co modification, issues of poor funding, issues of infrastructures, lack of commitment for conserving heritage materials, lack of awareness were the current management issues of the festival. The study revealed that economic values, environmental values, historical and cultural values, spiritual values, educational and informational values are the prominent values for safeguarding the festival for cultural tourism development. These findings assured that the all responsible bodies should be integrated to solve for the management issues and give attentions for the values that the festival endowed with for cultural tourism development. Keywords: Ashendye festival, intangible cultural heritage, values, issues, Lalibel

Investigating the Potential of Ancient Religious Sites in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewhido Church for Religious Tourism Development: The Case of Kirstos Semra

Though Ethiopia is endowed with a variety of religious tourism, its potential hasn’t been outlined, managed and used for the development of tourism. Kirstos Semra and its surroundings is one of the most outstanding sites and this study has a general objective of assessing the potential of the site and its surroundings for religious tourism. Descriptive design is employed as a methodology; to collect data, both primary and secondary sources are employed. Respondents were selected through convenience and purposively sampling methods, and in addition, content analysis was undertaken. Findings proved that religious festivals, ancient religious treasures and ancient monasteries are only some of the religious potential of the religious sites. To enhance religious tourism and sustainably develop general cultural tourism, all tourism stakeholders should strive to work together effectively

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

COVID-19 and The Holy Land of Lalibela World Heritage Site, Ethiopia

Ethiopia is the home of many tourist sites. Among these is Lalibela, one of the most famous and most visited World Heritage Sites. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism industry was severely affected. Thus, the main objective of the study is to investigate the impacts and solutions for the prevalence of COVID-19 at the holy land of Lalibela, the World Heritage Site. The study followed descriptive research design. The target population of the study were the local communities, religious fathers, local tourist guides, culture and tourism experts and hotel workers. The research was conducted through non-probability sampling techniques. Convenience sampling and purposive sampling methods were used. The results illustrate that economic impacts, social impacts and psychological impacts were major issues that COVID-19 has caused for the Holy Land of Lalibela, the World Heritage Site. As per the findings, mechanisms to overcome the effects of COVID-19 on the community and the tourism sector include promotion, giving attention to sustainable follow up, developing new products, facing the challenges of seasonality and applying the rules and regulations approved by the World Health Organization. Thus, the tourism and hospitality stakeholders in the area need to strongly integrate and give attention to minimise the effect of COVID-19 on the tourism industry at Lalibela

A Large-Scale Genome-Wide Association Analyses of Ethiopian Sorghum Landrace Collection Reveal Loci Associated With Important Traits

The eastern Africa region, Ethiopia and its surroundings, is considered as the center of origin and diversity for sorghum, and has contributed to global sorghum genetic improvement. The germplasm from this region harbors enormous genetic variation for various traits but little is known regarding the genetic architecture of most traits. Here, 1425 Ethiopian landrace accessions were phenotyped under field conditions for presence or absence of awns, panicle compactness and shape, panicle exsertion, pericarp color, glume cover, plant height and smut resistance under diverse environmental conditions in Ethiopia. In addition, F1 hybrids obtained from a subset of 1341 accessions crossed to an A1 cytoplasmic male sterile line, ATx623, were scored for fertility/sterility reactions. Subsequently, genotyping-by-sequencing generated a total of 879,407 SNPs from which 72,190 robust SNP markers were selected after stringent quality control (QC). Pairwise distance-based hierarchical clustering identified 11 distinct groups. Of the genotypes assigned to either one of the 11 sub-populations, 65% had high ancestry membership coefficient with the likelihood of more than 0.60 and the remaining 35% represented highly admixed accessions. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified loci and SNPs associated with aforementioned traits. GWAS based on compressed mixed linear model (CMLM) identified SNPs with significant association (FDR ≤ 0.05) to the different traits studied. The percentage of total phenotypic variation explained with significant SNPs across traits ranged from 2 to 43%. Candidate genes showing significant association with different traits were identified. The sorghum bHLH transcription factor, ABORTED MICROSPORES was identified as a strong candidate gene conditioning male fertility. Notably, sorghum CLAVATA1 receptor like kinase, known for regulation of plant growth, and the ETHYLENE RESPONSIVE TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR gene RAP2-7, known to suppress transition to flowering, were significantly associated with plant height. In addition, the YELLOW SEED1 like MYB transcription factor and TANNIN1 showed strong association with pericarp color validating previous observations. Overall, the genetic architecture of natural variation representing the complex Ethiopian sorghum germplasm was established. The study contributes to the characterization of genes and alleles controlling agronomic traits, and will serve as a source of markers for molecular breeding

Types and drug susceptibility patterns of bacterial isolates from eye discharge samples at Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

Background: The type and pattern of organisms that cause ocular infection changes over time. Moreover, the causative organisms have developed increased drug resistance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the prevalent bacterial agents of eye discharge and their drug susceptibility patterns to commonly used antimicrobial agents. Methods. A retrospective study was conducted at Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia from September, 2009 to August, 2012. Culture and drug susceptibility test results of patients who had eye infections were taken for analysis. Eye discharge samples were cultured on MacConkey agar, blood agar and chocolate agar plates. A standard biochemical procedure was used for full identification of bacterial isolates. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests were done on Mueller-Hinton agar by using disk diffusion method. Data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 16 software. Result: A total of 102 eye discharges were submitted for microbiological evaluation, of which (60.8%) had bacterial growth. The most frequently isolated bacterial isolates were gram-positive bacteria (74.2%). The predominant bacterial species isolated was Coagulase-negative staphylococci (27.4%) followed by S. aureus (21%). Within the age group of 1 day-2 years old, (66.1%) of bacteria were isolated. Most of the bacterial isolates were resistance to ampicilin (71%), amoxicilin (62.9%), erythromycin (43.5%), gentamicin (45.2%), penicillin (71%), trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole (58.1%), and tetracycline (64.6%) while Ceftriaxon and Ciprofloxacin showed (75.8%) and (80%) susceptibility respectively. From the total bacterial isolates, (87.1%) were showed multi drug resistance (MDR) to two or more drugs. Conclusion: The prevalence of bacterial isolates in eye discharge was high in the study area and majority of isolates were gram-positive bacteria. Most of the bacterial isolates were resistant to frequently used antimicrobials. Therefore, drug susceptibility test is necessary before prescribing any antimicrobials