THE STATUS OF KAFFA AS TOURIST DESTINATION: TOURISTS' PERSPECTIVE

Nowadays, tourism is growing remarkably in global economy and becoming means for changing the life of nation's at large and local people specifically in terms of economic, political, social and environmental aspects. Even though Ethiopia has amazing natural and manmade tourism potentials in different corners of the country, most of them are under researched and not utilized yet. Among these under researched and not utilized parts of the country but owning huge tourism potentials, Kaffa is exemplary. This paper examines or describes the status of Kaffa as tourist destination in perspective of tourists. For the sake of attaining the predetermined objective, descriptive research design was used. Questionnaire and own observation were used as means of data collection. Sample of 300 respondents from domestic and international tourists who visited or have exposure about Kaffa were considered. Descriptive statistics were applied for data analysis. Accordingly, the study revealed that hospitality of local people, safety of Kaffa to travel, political stability, immense tourism resources like rich diversity of flora and fauna, eco-tourism, coffee tourism and cultural tourism resources are promising but general infrastructure, tourist infrastructure and awareness creation are not promising about Kaffa as tourist destination. Therefore, coordinated effort from all stakeholders is required in order to solve problems revealed in this study.