Abstract:
The major purpose of this study was to examine the awareness level of tourism experts on the issues of
tourism development policy for promoting sustainable tourism development in Ethiopia. To achieve this
objective, quantitative and qualitative study approaches were used, and a purposive sampling technique
was employed for both questionnaire and interview data gathering instruments. Quantitatively, thirty nine
sample tourism experts participated from the Ethiopian Ministry of Tourism and Culture (MoCT), bureaus,
zonal and city experts and the collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, correlations, ANOVA,
Post hoc and independent t-test. Qualitative data were collected from eight experts and analyzed through
interpretative and descriptive accounts of the data and the major findings of the study are presented.
Accordingly, the t-test and ANOVA confirmed that there were statistically significant differences between
the awareness level of BA/BSc and MA/MSc experts and those who have worked less than ten years and
those serving more in the industry on tourism development policy concepts. In the approach to correlation,
a statistically significant relation was found between the tourism development policy elements of Ethiopia.
Regardless of contribution, the ANOVA revealed that there was statistically significant differences between
those who have worked under ten years and above on the role of tourism development policy in the
Ethiopian tourism industry. Furthermore, the t-test indicated that MA/MSc experts were predominant in
awareness about the role of a tourism development policy for sustainability. Finally, it was concluded that
tourism development policy and sustainable tourism, are closely related variables and they can play vital
roles in the sustainable development of the burgeoning Ethiopian tourism industry.
Keywords: Tourism, development, policy, awareness, Ethiopia.
