Hear about what was going on at SimienEcoTours and in Ethiopia in the last months.

Community Tourism in Gurage

Some SimienEcoTours staff including owners are engaged in a new exciting community tourism project in Gurage. The project called Lela Trails ('lela' means 'different' in Amharic) is about the construction and operation of community guesthouses in the rural and undiscovered part of the Gurage Zone 2-3 hours driving west of the capital Addis Ababa. Financing of the guesthouses is secured, and until the guesthouses are completed we're already running multi day hiking tours there, using these places as campsites. Yirga, Tesfu, Tadele, Amanuel, Elyas and Marco have all been guiding groups there during the time when other places were not 100% safe, as Gurage never had any security issues. Marco wrote a blog article about his experience guiding some international tourists. In this blog article named "Ethiopia - A Whole Country to Discover (part 2, Gurage)" you can read more about the fascinating Gurage Zone and its tourism potential:

Returning to the ITB in Berlin as exhibitor

The ITB in Berlin, the most important travel trade fair for tourism, has been canceled for 3 consecutive years due to the pandemic, in March 2023 they opened the gates again and Marco Degasper and Lorenzo Mazzoni were present. From 5 to 7 March 2024 we will be there again, this time as an exhibitor. We have been able to secure a 8 sqm stand in hall 4.1B (adventure travel & responsible tourism), booth no. 217A, which we share with another Ethiopian tour operator specialized in community tourism. So we will welcome everyone there to promote the above mentioned and other tour packages.
On Thursday 7 March in the afternoon you can see and hear us on the stage in hall 4.1B for a presentation about Ride the Rift and cycling tourism in Ethiopia.
Please visit us at our stand 217A and book an appointment with Marco and Lorenzo here: