Buhe Festival in Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church for Event Tourism Development: the case of Debre Tabor and its surroundings

Buhe festival is also called Debre Tabor festival. It is one of the most famous intangible cultural heritage events in Ethiopia. It was only a few decades ago that event tourism became established in both the tourism industry and in the research community, so that subsequent growth of this sector can only be described as spectacular. The festival is becoming highly celebrated at Debre Tabor town, Ethiopia. However, its potential, value and opportunities haven’t been studied so far. Thus, the objective of the study is to explore the practices of safeguarding Buhe festival for event tourism development. The study used descriptive research design and employed a qualitative approach. The target population were religious leaders, culture and tourism experts, the local community and the researchers themselves. Data instruments were interviews, observation and secondary data like document analysis. The collected data were analysed through thematic analysis method. Findings revealed that Buhe festival in Debre Tabor is endowed with immense potential in the form of cultural treasures, Debre Tabor Mountain, traditional songs with awesome poems, local traditional costumes, religious ceremonies, ancient history, religious institutions and others. The main values of the festival are socio-cultural, but also economic, creating a good image of the destination and its historical and religious values. Further opportunities include the use of Gafat Industrial villages and the ancient palace of Emperor Yohannes IV, celebrating the birth date of Menelik the Second and his beloved wife, and increased government attention for event tourism. Generally, tourism and its related stakeholders should work together to explore the potentials of the festival, to use the values of the festival and to strength the opportunities it is endowed with for the sake of event tourism development at the study area.