Dubai-based fame strategist Sheeraz Hasan has turned his global branding playbook toward Africa, meeting Ethiopia's State Minister of Tourism, Dr. Endegena Abebe, in Addis Ababa to begin work on raising the country's international profile. The high-level meeting marks the start of an ambitious new chapter for Ethiopian tourism on the world stage.
Hasan is best known as the Dubai-headquartered founder behind Hollywood.AI and Bollywood.AI — the AI-driven fame platforms that drew crowds at Dubai's GITEX Global — and a two-decade career making brands, celebrities and now entire nations visible to a global audience.
Putting Ethiopia's tourism story on the world map
The conversation centred on Ethiopia's vast, under-marketed tourism potential: its deep historical legacy, striking architecture, dramatic landscapes and rich cultural traditions. Dr. Endegena Abebe, who oversees tourism marketing and promotion, has made international visibility a priority as Ethiopia positions tourism among the key sectors driving its economic transformation.
For Hasan, the brief is familiar — take a compelling but under-exposed story and engineer global attention for it. Applying the same recognition strategy he has used for A-list names to a national tourism brand is a natural, and notably bigger, canvas.
A Dubai playbook heads to Addis Ababa
The meeting builds on Hasan's wider Africa mission centred on Addis Ababa. It also underlines how Dubai has become a base from which media and branding entrepreneurs export their expertise across emerging markets, with Hasan's Dubai-built network of platforms now working in service of a national tourism agenda.
Ethiopia's tourism ministry has been expanding its inventory of destinations and courting the wider African travel market. Pairing that push with a globally wired fame strategist signals intent to compete for international visitors well beyond the region.
With the partnership only just beginning, the coming months will show how a Dubai-honed approach to visibility translates into real-world arrivals for one of Africa's most historically rich destinations.