Study On Factors Afecting International Tourism Inflow In Eritrea

Tourism sector is among the most economically dynamic sectors in the world.It is becoming the main income of countries and creating employment opportunity.Eritrea has immense tourism potentials of natural,historical and cultural endowments.With these full of its potential,it is not able to exploit and get the benefits from tourism.The receipts from the sector is yet insignificant but the reasons behind the sector's poor performance is not yet well studied.Many challenges including domestic and international obstacles are attributing to the poor performance of the tourism sector.The purpose of the study is to explore,introduce and investigate the tourism potentials of Eritrea and to analyze the determinants of tourist inflows at a destination.The special focus is given to review the variables that determine the tourist inflow in the country using the destination competitiveness analysis model.This research analyzes the results based on the indicators related with this model to determine the factors affecting tourism inflow in Eritrea as a destination of tourists.The researcher used descriptive and empirical research design.The methods like mean,standard deviation and charts were used to analyze the result.In this study,both primary and secondary data are used in the analysis.Primary data were collected from distributing questioners to the tourist service providers(stakeholders)and cultural affairs bureau as well as interviews with the ministry of tourism officials.Secondary data is gathered from written documents found in Ministry of tourism offices of Eritrea,from different related researches,from books,published and unpublished documents.The analysis suggested that the poor political stability(no war no peace with Ethiopia),unsuitable tourism investment environment and poor tourism infrastructures are the top determinants of tourism inflow in Eritrea.The bad image of the country by the western countries and the injustice sanctions imposed against Eritrea by the United Nations Security Council and United States also hindered the tourism sector of the country.The survey also shows Eritrea has a better rating in inherited resources than in supporting resources,created,management and situational conditions.Most of the factors are rated below African standard and are suggested that considerable improvements and special attentions are required by the government to promote the tourism sector.