Potentials and Challenges for Religious Tourism Development: The Case of Qoma Fasiledes Church, Ethiopia

Religious tourism is one of the fastest-growing tourism sectors, expressing tourists' desire to engage for religious reasons and travel from their usual environment to another sacred place. Therefore, this study was intended to identify potentials, challenges and opportunities for religious tourism development at Qoma Fasiledes church. To this end, a qualitative research approach and a cross-sectional descriptive study design was employed to achieve the objectives of this study. The target populations were Zone and Woreda’s culture and tourism office experts, Qoma Fasiledes Betekihinet leaders and church scholars in Qoma Fasiledes church. 13 respondents were selected by non-probable sampling technique, using purposive sampling. Both primary and secondary data sources were employed. Hence, primary data were collected from interviews, focus group discussions and field observation. Whereas, secondary sources from published and unpublished documents. Findings indicate that; the long history of Qoma Fasiledes church, religious festivals, school education, Qomie Zema, mural painting, the Church building itself, treasure house and many movable heritages made from gold and silver including crosses, crowns and yisma Qoma Negarit as well as monastic activities were potentials for religious tourism development. Challenges were lack of infrastructure, lack of promotion, lack of professionals, absence of museums and lack of awareness. Therefore, to develop religious tourism in Qoma Fasiledes church, all stakeholders should collaborate to use potentials and mitigate the hindering factors by examining the opportunities.