If there is a city in the world famously known for its high cost of living, it is the city where I reside: Dear Oslo. It is not a city filled with extravagant skyscrapers, flashy lights, or superficialities. Yet, every year, a flood of tourists pours in from all directions. They visit the city, explore its historical sites, tourist-attracting museums, parks, and breathtaking landscapes.

But do you know what amazes tourists more than anything? The basic government and municipal services. Especially transportation and water! They are struck by its silence and its peacefulness. You can spend the entire day wandering alone to any place you desire with just a map (digital or print). No one will even glance your way. You can come and go without anyone even realizing you are a tourist.

What most visitors speak of after they leave is the “system”—specifically the welfare system. How the people live. The prisons. The schools, kindergartens, universities, medical facilities, and elderly care centers. They notice the economic equality, the tax system, and the people’s lifestyle. They see little difference between those working in a supermarket or McDonald’s and those working in education, healthcare, or the banking and insurance sectors. They leave saying, “Norway is a heaven on earth.” A book titled The Almost Nearly Perfect People [by Michael Booth] was even written about this and became a bestseller.

While it is often said that oil is behind this economic success, there are many countries with larger oil reserves than Norway that are “hells on earth.” Even those who have managed to utilize their natural resources relatively well (like Saudi Arabia) have management that is neither reliable nor sustainable, and the wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a few families.

A tourist attraction is not about “city glitter.” When tourists flock from cities that are perhaps more beautiful than Oslo and other Norwegian towns, it isn’t to marvel at the beauty of the streets. Beyond historical sites, museums, and parks, the primary reason they are amazed—and why they learn and decide to return to Norway repeatedly—is probably the life they experience, even for a short time. The freedom. The peace. The system.

You cannot make a country a tourist attraction just because you installed flashy lights in a single city while being entangled in war on fourteen fronts and clashing with one another. Changing a country’s image is not done through propaganda and live streaming, but through action. It happens when an atmosphere is created where a person can enter and leave in peace; when one can move from place to place without fear; and when basic services (at least transportation, phone, and internet) are provided reliably.

In the absence of this, no matter how much effort is put into expanding and promoting the tourism industry, the result will only be a futile exhaustion of resources and promotion work that cannot even properly cover its own costs.

Even if Ethiopia cannot yet amaze as a tourist attraction through its modern government services, it is a country with immense potential in the tourism sector due to its history, heritage, parks, wildlife, landscapes, and the lifestyle (culture) of its people. However, without reliable security, everything is in vain. And no less significant than security are the issues of corruption and exploitation. Why is it necessary to increase the price tenfold just because you see a foreigner? Unless the goal is to milk them dry so they never return?

When a government reconciles with itself and its people, and when peace descends, every member of the diaspora has a high chance of becoming an ambassador for their country. If each person “sweet-talked” 10 to 100 of their foreign friends about their country, it would reach hundreds of millions of people more consistently than a momentary live-streamed advertisement. Beyond tourism, a portion of those reached would even come flowing in for investment.

Adapted from my Facebook post in Amharic.