Practices Of Religious Tourism Development At Adadi Mariam Rock Hewn Church South West Of Addis Ababa

Religious tourism is a form of tourism in which tourists are engaged initially for religiousrnpurposes and it expresses the desire of people to move from their place of residence to anotherrnplace they considered as sacred. This thesis focuses on assessing the practice of religiousrntourism development at Adadi Mariam Rock-Hewn Church, southwest of Addis Ababa. Thisrnstudy applied a cross-sectional research design in line with a mixed research approach. Thernresearcher used both primary and secondary data. The primary data was gathered usingrninterview for 9 key informants from Oromia Bureau of Culture and tourism staffs, Woredarntourism bureau staffs, community elders, church administrator, Self-administered questionaries’rnwas prepared for 163 local and foreign tourists using non-probability purposive sampling, therndata collection from foreign tourists was taken place through email, a personal observation wasrnundertaken with the help of the checklists which focuses on checking the tourism services andrnproducts available at Adadi Mariam, checking the tourist facilities and infrastructures. The datarnwas analyzed using Narrative and thematic types of data analysis. The findings of the studyrnshowed that Adadi Maraim Rock Hewn church is a destination that can attract religious andrnnon-religious tourists; the church has spiritual tourism resources that attract tourists to therndestination. But religious tourism in Adadi Mariam has been less developed due to the followingrnchallenges; poor infrastructure, lack of coordination among stakeholders and concerned bodies,rnless attention given to the destination, lack of awareness, limited diversification of tourismrnproducts and services, and focuses on a single tourism product, lack of digital promotion andrnlimited technological infrastructure, unwise resource conservation were among the challenges.rnTherefore, it’s recommended that the relationship between stakeholders and concerned bodiesrnshould be improved, Infrastructural development would be the key, product diversification isrnnecessary and wise conservation is needed.

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