Abstract:
Gondar city is rich in cultural and historical tourism resources that could attract tourists from
different parts of the world. However, in the city tourism marketing does not meet the tourism
potential in reality. The purpose of this study was to identify tourism marketing challenges,
practices, and prospects in the case of Gondar city. The study was descriptive in design and a
cross-sectional method with quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Questionnaires and
key informant interviews were the main data gathering tools. Purposive sampling technique was
used to select the target population and the census was to determine the sample size of the
population. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean, and
standard deviation) through SPSS version 26. The study revealed that problems of political
instability, lack of quality and standard infrastructure, problems of sustainable, and effective
stakeholder integration, digital marketing problems, absence of tourism marketing strategy, and
quality of human resources problems are the major challenges that affect tourism marketing in
Gondar city. Besides, product, price, promotion, process, and place are practised well, but people
and physical evidence are not properly practised. Lastly, the presence of world heritage sites,
friendliness and hospitality of the people, the construction of Gorgora tourism project, easy
accessibility of destinations, and life in Fasil project are some of the tourism marketing prospects.
Therefore, to minimize the challenges the concerned body should develop quality and standard
infrastructure, sustainable, and effective stakeholder integration should be existing, and training
should be provided for digital marketing problems.
