Abstract:
Amhara National Regional State in Ethiopia is endowed and suitable with intangible tourism
resources from such resources events are the one, however, its contributions to pro-poor tourism
development are not well- known. The purpose of the study was to describe the contributions of
events on pro-poor tourism development in Bahir Dar city. A descriptive research design was
employed. The researcher used mixed research approaches. The researcher selected 399 sample
representatives from the local communities, and distributed the questionnaires for them. A
simple random sampling technique was utilized to distribute survey questionnaires for those
local household representatives by identifying the proper place. A non-probability purposive
sampling technique was followed to select 13 key informants. The data was collected from both
primary and secondary sources through a survey questionnaire, and semi-structured interview,
and document analysis. The quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive methods of analysis
such as mean, frequency, standard deviation, and percentage to explain the three objectives by
using the application of SPSS version 20. Qualitative data were also analyzed via content
analysis techniques. The study, in conclusion, found that the events have played a greater
contribution to the development of pro-poor tourism in Bahir Dar city. However, events
contribution onwards the three basic dimensions are not similar as their mean values indicated,
economic (4.11), social (4. 01), and environmental (3.46) to the development of pro-poor tourism
in Bahir Dar city. From the three dimensions events in environmentally contributed somehow
little to the development of pro-poor tourism while economic contributions of events are the
highest. The researcher recommended that tourism stakeholders need to come up together to do
something special on events in benefiting the poor communities and ensuring pro-poor tourism
development , to identify and promote events as tourism products etc…The findings will benefit
different tourism stakeholders by providing vital information about events contribution and used
as a reference for next researchers.
