| Abstract: | The tourism marketing and its development have gained a great attention and have been adopted
as a policy in tourism planning by many governments and concerned bodies. Thus, the study
aimed to analyze the tourism marketing practices, strategies and identify the challenges in Addis
Ababa during COVID-19. This study used a descriptive research design and distributed 305
questionnaires for local and international tourists and tour operators. Add to this, interviews
were made with purposely selected experts from marketing department of the Addis Ababa
culture and tourism office. Accordingly, the study found that the marketing practices of tourism
in Addis Ababa during COVID-19 place, price, people, process, partnership and promotion were
found to be practiced well. While, product, programming, physical evidence and packaging
exhibited inferior insufficient during COVID-19. Poor positioning strategy was found in terms of
its tourism strategy. UN expanded resource and development activities and travel restrictions
were found to be the impeding tourism marketing major challenges in Addis Ababa during
COVID-19. The independent t test analysis found that tourists and tour operators has similar
marketing mix practices in terms of price, product, promotion, place, people, process, physical
evidence, partnership, programming and packaging. For this reason, the study recommends that
to develop new products and good programming to return the tourist experience during COVID-
19. The exceptional positioning strategy of tourism sectors to promote to the customers in order
to create the image of Ethiopia tourism market. |
