The impact of cultural aspect of ethiopia :In case of

4 star hotel in addis ababa

Research proposal

Addis Ababa,11/12/2012

Abstract
This article explores ymthe impact of ethiopia cultural
aspect in the case of four star hotels in ethiopia and what
kind of impacti it impliment on the industry.the risearch
wil fins out the major relation of the cultural aspects and
problems withn it after findigng the problem it provides
solution that can improve the hoteles ability.

Acknowlwdgement

First of all we would like to say thanks for my almighty

god for his support . We would like to express our
deepest gratitude to our advisor Ato Teshals Biru. For his
unlimited advise and insight full commitment in the
preparation of this proposal. And Finally my sincere
gratitude goes to my families and for their unlimited
financial and moral support.

TABLE OF CONTENT

Content page

Abstract

Acknowledgement

Table of content

CHAPTER ONE

1. Introduction 6

1.1. Background of the study 6

1.2. Statement of the problem 10

1.3Objective of the study 11

1.3.1 General objective 11

1.3.2 specific objective 11

1.4 Research questions 12

1.5 Significance of the study 12

1.6 Scope of the study 13

1.7 limitation of the study 14

1.8 Organization of the study 14

CHAPTER TWO

2. Literature review 15

2.1 meaning of cultural aspect 16

2.2 Types of culture 16

2.3 cultural aspect and hotel 17

CHAPTER THREE

3. Methodology 27

3.1. Data type 28

3.2 sampling design 28

3.2.1 sampling size and sampling techniques 28

3.3.Data gathering instrument 29

3.4 procedures for data collection 29

3.5 method of data presentation 30

3.6 Budgeting 31
 Chapter one
1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the study
Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa, bordering Sudan, South
Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti. The country has
the second biggest population in Africa, with over 50% of
people being under 25 years of age.1 Due to the vast size of the
population, it is important to recognise that descriptions of
Ethiopian cultural customs can vary significantly. There are
many distinct cultural practices that are specific to people’s
region, ethnicity or religion. Despite this diversity, Ethiopians
are generally united by their patriotism and pride in the
country’s overarching cultural identi
The music of Ethiopia is diverse including range of sounds and
rhythm found in various ethnic groups. Folk music dominates
the culture and religious music is also common especially in
Christians and Muslims. A special Muslims musical form called
manzuma is played in northeastern Ethiopia in Wollo. Musical
instruments such as masinko, krar, negarit(a drum), lyre,
musical bows, bamboo flute, Trumpet, sistrum and drums are
used in various musical forms. There are many orchestra brands
in the country and some of the famous musicians are
Mahmoud Ahmed, Bizunesh Bekele, Alemayehu Eshete, Ali
Birra and Hirut Bekele.

Clothing
The traditional cloth of Ethiopian woman is called shemma,
which is used to make habesha qemis , a kind of women dress.
It is a cotton cloth 90 cm long sewn together, sometimes, with
shiny threads to give the bright elegant effect. Shawls are
commonly worn to different occasions and men wear knee
length shirt having a white collar and sometimes, sweater. Use
of heavy embroidery and jewelry of gold and silver is also found
in Ethiopian culture.
 

There is a host of traditional costumes which the people of

Ethiopia have. Women of Tigray and Amhara generally wear
‘Sheruba’, a type of plait worn by Ethiopian women on their
hair.  Today a number of designer dresses are worn in Ethiopia
and western dresses have replaced traditional clothing.
Traditional dresses are now only seen during religious
ceremonies or festivals.

Cuisine

The Ethiopian cuisine includes arrange of vegetables and meat

based dishes which are prepared as thick stew or wat. Most of
the Ethiopians are adhered to Orthodox Church, Islam or
Judaism and hence, eating pork is strictly prohibited.

Language
There are several languages spoken in the country of Ethiopia.
There are about 83 languages in the country, and these
languages are broadly categorized into four primary groups-
namely the Cushitic, the Semitic, the Nilo-Saharan and the
Omotic. What’s more, in Ethiopian language, there are more
than two hundred dialects, which once again confirms Ethiopia
as a truly multi ethnic country. Amharic is the semantic
language which is also the official language of the country and it
is spoken by 27 million people of the country. It has been
written in Ge’ez script and it is used by the Beta Israel Jewish
community and Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The second
largest language of the country is Oromo language.

Media

Ethiopian government controls majority of media sections

including the TV and the radio, and there are nine radio
broadcast stations in the country which have been given license
by the government to operate. The single broadcast network in
the country is Ethiopian Television, while, radio broadcast is
provided in many languages. The print media serves only a
section of literate population and the leading newspaper of the
country are the Daily Monitor, Addis Zemen, and the Ethiopian
Herald.
Festivals

The common Ethiopian festivals are – Timkat-Feast of the

Epiphany, Enkutatash, Maskal and Kullubi. Timkat-Feast of the
Epiphany is a three day festival which is taken part by ten
commandants from church and a procession of tabots is taken
to the church. On September 11, New Year (Enkutatash) is
celebrated in Ethiopia which marks the end of rains as the
regions is covered by wild flowers and children wear new
clothes and people participate in dancing and singing.
In ethiopia, the hotel indusstry is showing astudy growth in
the last two decades,but its not with out chalange, the maon
being yhe quality of the service in the majority of yhe
hotels.Their are only four internationally branded hotels witha
a total of 1012 avalable rooms, and the majoryty of suted
hotels are located in addis ababa.
1.2 Statment of the probelm
In ethiopia their are differen kinds of cultural aspects becouse
ethioia is deversed country.this cultural aspests have different
impact on hotels tha may be posetive or negatve.people travel
from place to place and exprience others cultural view other
than their orign and and on exchage they become a way to
generate income but this cultural aspects might cause many
kinds of barriers. hotel is an establishment that provides paid
lodging on a short-term basis.A 4-Star hotel is much more
comfortable and larger, and provides excellent cuisine (table
d'hote and a la carte), room service, and other amenities. Even
thougn its star rated hotel and comftobel becouse of cultural
aspect some problems like commnucation barrier, miss
undrstading between the gust and service provider might
occure.and this study will asses this probles and offer solution
to help the hotels.

1.3Objective of the study

1.3.1General objective
The general objective of this research is to asses the cultural
aspects of ethiopia in relation to 4 star hotels in addis in order
to identify its Merritt and demerrit on them.
The main objectives of the study is to enable the cultural assets
and heritage of Ethiopia’s to play a key role in creating one
economic and social polity through their preservation,
development and use in the hotel sector . The study firmly
pledges to protect and promote culture , to improve the
developmet of this 4star rated hotels in addis ababa, and to
ensure human resource development, and ease financial and
regulatory shortcomings.

1.3.2 Specific objective

Specificly this study will identify what the hotels provided
depending on the cultural aspect of ethiopia.
Postive or negative nfluence that ethiopian culture
implemets on the structure of the hotel
To asses the hotels Abillity on how to change this cultutal
sources on to money generation.

-
1.4 Research questions
1 what is the impact of ethiopian cultural aspects on hotels.
2 dose it have posetive or negative impact on them if so how do
they colabrate with the impact.
3 what kind of strategies and mechanisms are used to use the
cultural aspect for generating profit
 
1.5 Significance of the study
This study is for the use of 4 star hotels to show that the aspect
of ethopian culturs can be used for their benefit and the can
genetate more profit.
Cultural diversity can have a significant influence on the
hospitality business. The study reveals that cultural diversity is
highly important in hospitality business due to global customer-
related industry. However, this phenomenal benefit has
challenges as well, such as communication barriers between
employees.
1.6 Scope of the study
Becouse of the time frame and the vastness of the study the
scope of the study is limmited to 4 star hotels in adiss ababa. As
we know Ethiopia's cultural aspect and hotels are inseparable
and it may have many impact on them so to with the time
frame ande to be prisice we wil do the research on 4 star hotels
in ethiopia.

1.7 Limitation of the study

There may be some situation that we face while collecting

data due to the busiest work nature and miss appropriate
information as per the study needs. Unable to includes all the
hotels due to limitation of resources (time and budget) and
most of the respond might be related to the study.

The lack of time and source might limit our working capacity
and that will affect the research in quality and efficeny.

Some of our sources may not be as coorporative.

1.8 Organization of the study

The researches would have four chapters. The first chapter

contains the background, statement of the problem, objectives of
the study, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the
study. The second chapter addresses the theoretical aspect of the
study, which includes relevant and related literatures’. The third
chapter contains data analysis and presentation collected from
the respondents. The fourth chapter deals with the summary,
conclusion and recommendation.
 Chapter two
2Related literature review

Ethiopia is a country of deep tradition and religious practices

dating back to the history of King Solomon in the Bible.
Ethiopian society is also known for many traditional healing
practices often mixed with Christian, Muslim and other
traditional religious and shamanic rituals. Western models of
Counselling and psychotherapy are new to the people.
Traditional healing methods widely used to treat physical as
well as psychological illness in Ethiopia. Mental Health is one of
the most disadvantaged health programs in Ethiopia, both in
terms of facilities and trained manpower. In the traditional
Ethiopian worldview, illness of any kind is often associated with
forces of witchcraft, evil eye and other believed negative forces
and the healing process is often done by priests and other
religiomagical healers of one or other religion and category.
The Western form of counselling and psychotherapy has not
deep-rooted in the country although rapid expansion in the
recent years is seen in school counselling and VCT services for
HIV in cities and urban centres. However, it has not penetrated
into the rural areas. Due to the strong religious background,
people always look for religiomagical solutions to their
problems. Therefore preparing an indigenous counselling
model by incorporating the existing traditional modalities
would be a real challenge to the psychologists and clinicians in
Ethiopia. The unique traditional Ethiopian worldview and the
human developmental psychological functions of the people
demand for a cultural-sensitive counselling and
psychotherapeutic approaches which are tailor-made for the
people in Ethiopia. Counselling psychology is limited to school,
colleges and VCT centres today need to expand to all mental
health issues. Awareness about mental health issues together
with indigenous counselling models will bring the country to a
better future.

2.1 Meaning of cultural aspects

Through culture, people and groups define themselves,
conform to society's shared values, and contribute to society.
Thus, culture includes many societal aspects: language,
customs, values, norms,
mores, rules, tools, technologies, products, organizations, and
institutions.
2.2 Types of culture
Their are differe t types of culture in the society various culture
levels are assocated with each other.The most broad culture
level is universal culture wherd as individual reppresets the
most unique cstagory.

2.3 cultural aspect and hotels

With the changing environment and stepping into the new
centuries made all industries to change itself, especially when it
comes to hospitality industry. First of all, hospitality is a major
and diverse industry around the world. And business in today’s
world is not a constant one which stands there in the market
forever. It changes according to different causes like time, trend
of the market, customer expectations and also includes culture.
A fine definition of culture is, “Culture refers to the cumulative
deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes,
meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, and
possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of
generations through individual and group striving.” (Hofstede,
1997).
Culture plays a major role in any kind of business that exists in
the market. Especially when it comes to the international
hospitality business, culture is a serious fact to consider in
order to survive in the market. Culture exists and differs from
place to place and time to time. And some cultures already
spread way beyond their boundaries and reached their new
destinations. Cultures rage battles among themselves to
survive. So the key factor in order to run a successful hospitality
business or any kind of business is to understand the different
cultures.

Culture acts different in different places. For example managing

a culture in a work environment is different when looking at the
customer’s point of view. It is a tactful theory for managers to
handle it in any kind of organizations. In today’s world it is
really hard to find a place where there is no existence of more
than one culture. Today’s world is mixed with different cultures
which makes more difficult for the managers in order to handle
the business. Let us discus in brief about international
hospitality business before we look deep into the culture.
Hospitality is a service industry which is very important for
every nation in the world. A fine definition of international
hospitality business is, “When a domestic hospitality company
establishes a new business in a foreign market, this company is
said to be engaging in international business. International
business is defined as a business transaction taking place
between two or more companies from different countries.
These transactions can be in trade, manufacturing, investments
or services.” (Yu, 1999).

A very important fact is that the hospitality as well as the

tourism industry is service industry, but they do differ from
each other. Hospitality industry is more based on food,
accommodation, communication and customer service where
tourism industry is based on travel and destinations.

When it comes to the culture mix with the hospitality industry,

it always ends in a disaster business if there is no proper
management to take care of it. Hospitality as a service industry
is mainly focus on customers, where in this industry the
customers are from different places which mean different
cultures. First fact is that dealing with different kinds of
customers from different cultural background is very difficult
under one roof. The second fact is that establishing a new
hospitality business in a new destination could be more difficult
to handle. For example if a company from Japan establish its
hotel in New York, the managers must understand the cultural
trend of New York in order to run the business. They cannot
implement all their Japanese knowledge and policies into the
business immediately. They must understand the people who
live and travel there to have a successful business. “For
international companies, research shows that often companies
successful in their home countries have failed in foreign
markets not because of technical incompetence but because of
a lack of knowledge and understanding of a foreign market
culture.” (Jia, 2010). That research proves that the culture could
influence the business in many ways.

The third and major fact that influences the hospitality business
lies nowhere but inside the business itself. It is the internal
environment of the business which is its employees. In other
term it is called as cross culture business environment. Due to
the various immigration policies and searching for the right
candidate for the right job made countries to hire foreign
employees. This is one of the main causes which strengthened
the cross culture environment. At the present market, almost
all industries have cross culture environment.

Though it has lots of advantages like less pay, more hours and
profit, it also has some disadvantages, especially for the
managers. The following research shows us an idea of what is a
major issue for managers when come to handle the cross
couture environment. “Factors associated with the task
influence by how much the diverse group is more creative than
the homogeneous single-culture group. Diverse groups
outperform homogeneous groups on complex problem-solving
tasks, but may be less successful in performing routine tasks.
Diverse group need time to resolve difficulties of working
together. In an experiment conducted over 17 weeks Watson et
al. (1993) found that the both group performed equally but the
diverse group performed better in finding the range of possible
solutions.” (Mead, 2005).

The research shows that even though the diverse group

performed better than the homogeneous group, they take time
to settle themselves as a team to perform to gather and
consume lots of time to do that. But time is really an important
matter for today’s business. Everything runs in a way where
even a day is too short for everything. This could be an issue for
managers especially when it comes to the fast environment like
hotels and restaurants. But the managers have to invest time
on their employees to make a strong environment in his
business. This led the managers to the simple management
cycle which is shown below,
C:UsersadminDownloadsvolunteercycle.jpg

(Vinette, 2008)

The first important fact is to hire the right candidate for the
right job. Training is an important fact that could solve any kind
of issues in the organization. Training strengthene the business
enviornment and it results in a good outcome. If there is a
powerful training process in a multicultural business
enviornment,then the result woud be more effective and
positive for the business. That is the reason training process in
the organization is considered as an important fact in each
process of the business.

An other factor which influence the international hospitality

business is the external factor. Changing trends, taste and the
preference of the customers rule the market. And the
technology is way beyond than the human expectation which
helps the different cultures to spread around the world and find
their new homes. This results in us living in a multicultural
enviornment. All these affects hospitality industry directly or
indirectly. Being as a service industry,it has to change according
to the time and the situation in the market which is not easy as
it seems in this competitive market.

At first to overcome the issues in the internal factors such as

managing cross culture enviornment, business managers comes
with the different kinds of model as a solution for this issue.
One of the famous model used by the international managers is
‘comparitive model’. “The model enable the user to make
comparisions between different cultures and any one culture is
described in relation to another culture or cultures.” (Mead,
2005). This helps the managers to understand the different
cultures and gives a basic idead of handling it. But if a cross
cultural environment is properly managed and trained,then the
resul will always be an successfull and profitable one.

All international hospitality industry involves in the matter of

encountering their customers from different cultural
backgrounds. So the issue for the managers is not just to
manage the internal factors (employees) but also the exernal
factors,i.e, the consumers. Managing customers is really
important and really a hard task for managers as there are
plenty of competitors in the market. And the customers are like
a free bird in this socialist economy. “The cultural background
srongly influences the consumer behaviour, Ignorance of core
cultural sensitive values often leads to erroneous belief
resulting in unhappy customers and lost business.” (Mohsin,
2006). This is a fine example. The Western culture people go for
the time saving process in any kind of industry where Asians
prefer high quality interpersonal relations. Even the view of the
consumer about a product is differ from each cultures. And
ignorance of the cross culture will have a direct impact on the
business and leads to winding up specially for hospitality
industry bing as a servic industry.

It is very important to note that both the internal and external

factor of the hospitality industry is well connected. Employees
works in a way with the consumers to run a smooth flow of
business. The relationship between the employees and their
actuall customers is measurable which makes easy for the
managers to run a profitable business. The multicultural
enviornment in the hospitality industry is a boon to the
business, because the employyes itself will find a way to
interact and communicate themself to understand the needs of
the foregin consumers. As the internal enviornment itself has
different cultures which mean different ideas and solution for
the different problems which is a key way to a successful
business.
At this 21st century, hospitality industry like hotels, restaurants
are worldwide. A research shows that there are existence of
279 foregin hotels in a singe state of China. (Okoroafo, 2010).
This shows us the increasing level of international hospitality
business worldwide. When a business extends beyond its
territory, then there is a strong percentage that it will get mixed
with the other cultures. A best example is opening a Japaneese
hotel in the heart of U.S.A. In this case,the japaneese company
will bring their own management people who will be mixed
with american candiates. This i called as a cross cultural
management. To run the busines,Japaneese managers must
understand the culture of America at first and also other factors
such as govermnt policies and rules and regulations.
Understanding culture is one of the important fact when it
comes to the hospitality busniess.

Policies and regulations of the goverment may sometime

affects hospitality industry.For example the immigration
policies of goverment always have an impact on hospitality
business. It has both positive and negative sides. The following
graph shows the immigrations of U.S.A from the year of 1820-
2010,
The graph shows that the immigrants in the U.S alone has
reached its peak level where they have never seen anything like
this in their American immigration history. And this make
America as a multicultural nation. Because Each Immigrants
brings their own culture into the country. This happens not just
in America, its worldwide now. This will slowely affect the
hospitality industry as there is a slow change in the the culture
of the country. Over croweded muticultural nations also have
issues like racism and equality which affects not only the
hospitality industry but all industries. So it is the duty of the
managers to keep an eye on the Nations culture and update
their business and the products according to the cultural
change.

CONCLUSIN:
As we are living in a changing cultural enviornment, we need to
adapt ourselfs in order to survive in this competitive world. And
our business adapts with us in a matter of fact. Even though
there are lots of cultural changes occurs in the soceity,
Hospitality industry survived those impacts which were thrown
by our different cultures. The key factor is the training which
helps the managers to manage both the internal and exernal
factors which ifluences the hospitality business. If an
international hospitality manager manages to give a proper
training to his multicultural employees,then there is no doubt
that the business will be successfull one. And it is also
important to keep an eye on the muticultural future which is
very near and crystel clear.

Chapter three
3 Research methodology and approach

In this research, the method we will use is descriptive survey

method. Because a descriptive survey method helps to gather
data related to a problem under the study and it is also effective
for providing a snapshot of the current behaviors, attitudes and
beliefs in a population, but not in particular cases. The
descriptive survey method also helps to provide adequate
information that enables the researcher to suggest with some
valuable alternatives. Discriptive survey method of research is a
fact finding study with adequate and accurate interpretations of
the findings. Thus a descriptive survey method was used in this
study.
3.1Data type and source

Their are two type of data that can be used for our study that are
primary and secodary data. Since their is a pandemic yhat is
covid -19 will collect primary data through telephone interview
with hotels that are 4 star and secondary data from books,
magezin,news papers, interne. We will us more of secondary
data.

Data type the research needs both qualitative and quantitative

datas in order to reach its objective and we will use both data
types but becouse of our research depends on qualitative
datasmore of the study will depen on tehe qualitative data.

3.2Sampling design

3.2.1 Sample Size And Sampling Techniques

In this paper there wil be about 10 Hotels in Addis Ababa city.
From the total of 10 hotels 4 of them will be taken as a
sample. Within the sample hotels there are 4 general manager
that are selected and 40 customers will be included in the
study by applying both simple random sampling and purposive
sampling method.

3.3 Data gathering instrument

Interview
As a primary source of data for the study, the researched
conducted interviews to collect qualitative data where he
followed a rigid procedure and seeks answers to set of pre-
conceived questions through personal interviews. Thus
interviews conducted as an individual interview was done in
the form of structured interviews, semi-structured interviews,
and unstructured interviews. It has been used as one of the
instruments of gathering qualitative data. Interviews have
been conducted in some hotels with the general managers.

The other data gathsring method is from books and internet.

3.4 Procedures For Data Collection

In order to collect the necessary data through the selected
instrument,we will follow the following procedures:

Firstly we will contact the respondents to establish good

report, we wil condact telephone interview

Then after their responses will be cross-checked and

evaluated, and

Finally tabulation and interpretation was done for better

analysi

3.5 Method of data presentation and analysis

The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative data

analyzing methods. The data those gathered from internet and
other sources will be analyzed using or through quantitative
method of data analysis. The data, which was gathered through
interview, were presented qualitatively.

3.6 Budgeting
 Financial Plan
Sr. Financial Qty. Unit Total Justification
Category Cost Cost
No.
in in
Birr Birr
1 Supplies
⚜Writing pad 2 150 300
⚜Pen 10 10 10
⚜Pencil 3 6 18
⚜Flash drive 1 450 450 For backup's
(8GB) and file
moving
purposes
⚜A4-size paper 50 1.50 75
Subtotal 853
2 Service
⚜Transportatio 400
n
⚜Binding 1 70 70
⚜Photo copy 20 2 40
Subtotal 510
3 Total 1363