Blog - Page 4

Many of our destinations facing more severe waste problems due to a lack of awareness of local service providers and careless travelers and tour companies that leave behind their non-composable waste. However, it could be so easy to reduce waste while traveling by training drivers and guides accordingly and making guests aware of the problem and offer them plastic-free alternatives. SimienEcoTours strives towards greener tours. Ever since it has been one of our principles with concrete measures and initiatives we support. Another great achievement these days is the support of the clean-up in Danakil Depression that we support.

While celebrating Easter in Europe this weekend, here in Ethiopia we still have a month to go for our Ethiopian Easter holiday. 'Fasika' how we call it is certainly one of the most colorful holidays during the religious year and a trip to Ethiopia is truly a feast for photographers and culture lovers.
Ethiopia is known for its stunning religious holidays and as traveling is not so easy these days, we would love to share some impressions from our Easter.

Last Saturday on November 21 fifty riders climbed up the Rift Valley escarpment at Ankober for the good cause. The first edition of our charity bike ride 'Ride the Rift' from Afar to the Ankober Palace was organized by four Ethiopian tour operators - SimienEcoTours, Dynasty Ethiopia Tours, Tesfa Tours and Ethio Cycling Holidays.
‘Ride the Rift’ is an initiative to support freelance tourism providers all over Ethiopia that are worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.It was an amazing weekend with more than 500,000 ETB raised for the good cause! Participants and their families had a great time and enjoyed the great atmosphere at the camp as well as at Ankober Lodge.

After more than half a year since the outbreak of the pandemic, Ethiopia re-opened for tourism again and we do know that safety will be one of the major concerns of travelers but also for our employees. To support the country's safe travel efforts at attraction sites, in hotels and restaurants tour operators are at the forefront to promote safe travel and train employees accordingly. A first COVID-19 Safe Travel Training has been conducted in our Addis Ababa office on October 16, 2020.

Ethiopia is re-opening its doors again to receive first guests after all necessary precautions have been put in place to make sure tourists can travel safely. However, borders have never been fully closed and internal travel restrictions where comparatively sound which was a great chance for the SimienEcoTours team to travel ourselves over the last couple of months and discover new destinations, get a personal feeling how it’s like to travel in Ethiopia during the pandemic and prepare great once in a lifetime opportunities for people willing to travel soon.