Ethiopian Tourism in collaboration with the International Financial Corporation (IFC) is preparing both a meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) and a stopover tourism strategy to increase Ethiopia's tourism competitiveness.

The strategies, part of one million dollars of technical support and capacity building cooperation between the two, have been under preparation for the last six months.

The MICE and stopover tourism strategies are 10-year and four-year strategies, respectively, and are expected to be operational in the middle of the current fiscal year.

"Most transit travelers spend up to 20 hours at Bole International Airport, and the stopover strategy will allow them to visit some places and spend time and money," said Sileshi Girma, CEO of Tourism Ethiopia.

The world’s first stopover tourism strategy was launched in the 1950s, and nations began investing heavily in this strategy in 2010 amid the financial crisis.

“Even though the country is a conference destination, we can’t get large benefits from visitors because of the absence of strategies, infrastructure and cooperative work between stakeholders,” said Kumneger Teketel, managing director of Ozzie Business & Hospitality Group and Addis Abeba Convention bureau director.

Since Addis Abeba's Bole International Airport has become the largest air transit hub in Africa through an expansion and upgrade, liberalisation of Ethiopia’s visa policy, expansion of the domestic flight network and increased accommodation capacity are the recent developments that have led to the development of a stopover tourism strategy.

Expensive domestic flights, limited hotel capacity in key destinations, poor customer service and concerns over hygiene issues are challenges to Ethiopian stopover tourism that were mentioned during the discussion.