**4.3 Cultural tourists to Sidama: profile**

The profile of cultural tourists was analyzed out of a survey which was mainly adopted from cultural tourist typologies model developed by [23]. To suit it into the context of Sidama as a cultural tourist destination, few variables related to visitor attributes were also incorporated. The first part of tourist profile presents the proportion of each cultural tourist component while visitor attributes as a cultural tourist are portrayed in the second section (see **Table 3**).


Study findings showed that the *casual cultural tourists* (33.77%)*,* to whom cultural tourism is a weak motive for visiting a destination, and the resultant experience is shallow, make up the largest part of visitors. They are followed by the *incidental cultural tourists* (24.5%)*, who* do not travel for cultural tourism reasons but nonetheless participate in some activities and get shallow experiences. The share of *serendipitous cultural tourists,* those who do not travel for cultural tourism reasons, but who, after participating, end up having a deep cultural tourism experience, is 3.97%. Simple summation of these three typologies of tourists yields the finding that about 62% of international tourists have trip purposes other than culture while visiting Sidama. They are either motivated by natural riches of the area or are on a package tour covering cultural visit to South Omo tribes, the biggest recipients of Ethiopia's cultural tourism [36]. As [40] contends, this group includes people traveling to a destination without a plan to visit a heritage site or any other cultural offering, but do so when some other factors force them to cultural visitation.

The rest 38% of tourists surveyed indicated that motives related to cultural tourism played an important role in visiting Sidama. This figure is closer to the percentage of tourists who consider themselves as being of culture holiday while visiting attractions in Sidama (35.43%). These tourists fall in either the *sightseeing cultural tourists* (22.51%), whose primary purpose of visiting Sidama is culture, but who ended having a shallow experience of the destination; or *the purposeful cultural tourists* (15.23%), to whom visiting cultural resources of Sidama is their primary purpose of trip while enjoying deep level of cultural experience at the same time. These are people who are 'highly motivated' and travel to a destination specifically because of, for example, its museums, cultural landscapes, churches or festivals [40].

Though learning is a primary motive of cultural tourists in standardized destinations [9], problems of proper destination development and marketing in Sidama zone have appear to show an opposite figure. This is manifested in small number of tourists who learned few Sidama language words/phrases out of trip (17.88%); and who tasted cultural foods and drinks of Sidama. This is mainly due to the very short length of tourist stay in the area and the resulting shallow touring experience of attractions [41].

Findings from typologies of cultural tourists to Sidama area reveal two main conclusions. First over one-third of tourists to the area could be regarded as cultural tourists. But to the significant majority of them, cultural tourism plays no role in their decision to visit Sidama. In fact, the share of those tourists, to whom cultural tourism is the primary trip purpose and who have deep experience, is very low [42].
