Description
Kenya as a destination for tourists has unique features that make it attractive and competitive in the global tourism market. Despite Kenya’s efforts and heavy investment by government owned in the industry, it seems that destination marketing has not yet picked up to the desired levels in the country. This may be attributed to several factors that have shaped Kenya’s image in the global arena. Media coverage has been used by diverse destination marketing organizations to varying success in relations to their marketing challenges such as after terrorism attacks, political violence, and natural disasters among others. The study examined the factors affecting destination marketing performance by public organizations in Kenya. More specifically the research sought to examine the role of media coverage on destination marketing performance in Kenya. The study is based on the positivism research philosophy and adopted a descriptive research design. The target population comprised employees of Kenya Tourism Board, Bomas of Kenya, Kenya Wildlife Services, Tourism Research Institute, Kenya Airways Kenya Safaris Hotels and Lodges, Kenya Airways, Kenya Incentives Convention Center and Brand Kenya Board. The census sampling method was employed to capture respondents totaling 115. Findings for the study indicated that there was a statistically significant positive correlation between media aspects and destination marketing performance (r = 0.380, p <0.05). This implies that when media aspects are enhanced destination marketing performance improves. The study concludes that if government invested more resources on media, destination marketing performance in Kenya would have a significant improvement index.
Keywords
- Media coverage, Destination Marketing, Public organizations, Tourism.
