Abstract:
Managing and marketing destinations is challenging because of the variety of
stakeholders involved in the development and production of tourism products. Marketing
should ensure alignment of aims of various stakeholders on tourist destination on its
long-term attraction and competitiveness. The Kenyan tourist destinations have become
less competitive due to improper marketing strategies. However, understating how
different marketing strategies affect tourist destinations choice is still limited. Moreover,
many researchers argue that management in the tourist industry are not aware of the
various marketing strategies provided by various tourist firms to enable them select their
destinations. Therefore, the study investigated the effects of marketing strategies on
tourists’ choice on Maasai Mara National Reserve Kenya. It was specifically aimed at
establishing the effect of destination marketing organizations, tourism promotion
campaigns, tourism information centers and web based technologies on tourist
destination choice. The study was informed by the classic line of thought and the
alternative line of thought models. The research design used was descriptive survey and
explanatory which enabled the researcher to gather data from the population. The target
population was tourists visiting Maasai Mara National Reserve for the first six months of
2015. The simple random sampling techniques were used to select a sample of 224
tourists. Questionnaires were used to collect the relevant quantitative data, with crobanch
alpha being used to determine the reliability of the scales used. The data collected was
analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques such as frequencies, mean, and standard
deviation and presented using tables and charts. The researcher also used inferential
statistics (t-test) and employed Pearson correlation to show the relationships that exist
between the variables. Multiple regressions analysis was also performed to show the
causal effect. Findings showed that destination marketing organizations (β 1 = 0.317),
tourism promotion campaign (β 2 = 0.242) and web based technology (β 3 = 0.436) all with
a p-value = 0.000 had a significant and positive effect on tourist destination choice.
However, tourism information centers had a negative and significant effect on destination
choice (β4 = -0.237, p-value = 0.000). This infers that the use of destination marketing
organizations, tourism promotion campaign and web based technology enhances the
destination choice while use of tourism information centers reduce destination choice. In
multiple regression model, the results showed that all the four predictors; information
centers, Web based technologies, Tourism promotion campaign and Destination
Marketing Organizations explained 50.5 percent variation of destination choice. The
study therefore concludes that the findings provided enough evidence that marketing
strategies are important direct factors of influence on destination choice. Recommends to
the management of tourism sites to develop an image and engage in marketing strategies
in order to create a positive attitude on its customers/tourists to ensure that their
destinations are chosen.