Management Issues and the Values of Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage for Cultural Tourism Development: The Case of Ashendye Festival, Lalibela, Ethiopia

Abstract

Ashendye festival is one of the famous intangible cultural heritages, which is found and celebrated in the northern parts of Ethiopia specifically in Lalibela and its surrounding. Since Ashendye intangible cultural heritage is the ancient festivals of the destination and can provide a lot of values for the local communities, government, and tourism industries, using, conserving and passing it to the next generation sustainably is a crucial issue. The objectives of this study were investigating the values of safeguarding Ashendye festival for cultural tourism development and to examine its management issues to assure cultural tourism development at the destination. The target populations were the religious fathers, tourism and culture experts, local guides, tourist information center, souvenirs shops and local community of the destination. Descriptive research design was employed. Both quantitative approach and qualitative approach was chosen to undertake the study. Non probability sampling was employed to get the right respondents. Thus, 110 respondents were chosen through purposely sampling techniques. Finding showed that issues of globalization and co modification, issues of poor funding, issues of infrastructures, lack of commitment for conserving heritage materials, lack of awareness were the current management issues of the festival. The study revealed that economic values, environmental values, historical and cultural values, spiritual values, educational and informational values are the prominent values for safeguarding the festival for cultural tourism development. These findings assured that the all responsible bodies should be integrated to solve for the management issues and give attentions for the values that the festival endowed with for cultural tourism development.

Keywords: Ashendye festival, intangible cultural heritage, values, issues, Lalibela