The historic city of Gondar, located nearly 700 km north of capital Addis Ababa is expecting ever the biggest number of foreign tourists for this year’s Epiphany that is already started with a colorful eve with youths performing traditional shows and priests carrying out liturgy.
Epiphany and its eve procession are similar to be marked across the country but history attracted many people to celebrate Epiphany in Gondar city. During the eve, persists carrying arc of the covenants from churches, and escorted by huge congregations go down to river banks to commemorate the baptism of Jesus Christ by the hand of John the Baptist at river Jordan.
According to Gondar City Administration, this year over 15 thousand foreign tourists are expected to come in the city for Epiphany through over 17 booked flight schedules.
“This year’s Gondar Epiphany is colorful with increasing number of foreign tourists and Ethiopian-born citizens shown an increase appetite for coming,” said Sertsefire Sibhat, Tourism Ethiopia Deputy Director.
He said that the government has given due attention to the tourism sector in a bid to increase revenue by creating conducive situation for sector actors including tour operators. As the holiday has a feature of cultural and traditional sideline shows, tourists will be more attracted during their stay, he added.
Of the many holydays Ethiopians celebrate, Epiphany is mostly an outdoor one that is celebrated by Orthodox Church, which has a dominant number of followers in the country.