Public showers

Product/Service Description- Public bath and shower services are places where people go and take baths
or showers by paying service changes. In simple terms these are places where people wash their bodies.
It is also possible to include services which enable people to do their laundry- i.e to wash their clothes.
The best example for bath and shower is the “Filwuha” in Addis Ababa.

Market Potential- If one visualizes all the urban (small and large) centers in the Amhara Region, in fact in
the whole country, he or she can find practically no places where people can take bath or shower. Not
more than five percent of the urban houses have bath or shower facilities. Even most hotels in zonal and
woreda capitals do not have such facilities. Under this situation people are forced to take baths or
showers by boiling water in heir kitchen and taking the bath in their living rooms or in their backyards.
And this is done, in most cases, at long intervals. So the situation with regard to bath and shower
services in the Region is grim. In some urban centers which are lucky to be near rivers or streams people
do their body cleaning in these rivers and streams?

There are about 2.1 million people living in “urban areas” in the Amhara Region. Probably not more than
one percent of these people have in-door bath or shower facilities. The rest do not have any such
facilities. Hence there is a huge market for enterprises which can provide bath and shower services by
building and installing these facilities in locations convenient to the public. If we assume that 40 percent
of the urban populations take shower or bath once in a week, this translates into a demand of 840,000
baths or shower per week.

Source of Raw Material- The main inputs for providing shower and bath services are rooms, water and
energy. Energy could come by installing solar panels by which sunlight energy is converted into electric
power. Water could be obtained from the municipality or it can be generated by digging wells.

Estimated investment- For an outfit that will have at least 15 rooms where shower or bath services are
to be provided the investment cost will be:
Buildings 70m2 at Br. 2000/m2 = 140,000

Furniture and texture 50,000

Working capita 30,000

220,000

Benefits- Improves personal hygiene, decreases incidence of diseases.

Location- All urban centers

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