An Examination of Influence of Competition on Destination Marketing Performance by Public Organizations in Kenya

Kenya faces intense competition in the tourism from countries such as Tanzania that have similar tourism offering in the game reserves and related products. Both countries have game parts and the world famous wildebeest migration phenomenon. This has often resulted in intense competition for the tourists to the national parks. The country also faces stiff competition from competing destinations such as Malaysia, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia and Tanzania and has led to the decline of arrivals. Competition from the rest of the world -Countries like Switzerland has beautiful scenery and some other tourist attraction sites. The country Kenya therefore is sharing the market getting a small portion reducing its revenue. This study sought to examine the manner in which tourism influences destination marketing aspects within the country. The results also indicate that the there exists a positive significant non- causal relationship between competition and destination marketing in Kenya (r = 0.451, p < 0.05). The regression analysis found that there exist a statistically significant positive relationship between competition and destination marketing performance in public organizations in Kenya (β =0.606, p<0.05). This means that the null hypothesis (Ho) was rejected by implying that “there is significant effect of competition on destination marketing performance by public organizations in Kenya”. The study concluded that competition (new markets offering similar products, destination competitiveness and branding) have significant effect on destination marketing performance in public organizations in Kenya. Conclusions can also be made that that tourism destination in Kenya face stiff competition from East African countries e.g. Tanzania as well as South Africa and Mauritius who are offering offer similar products to those Kenya offers, thus affecting the competitiveness of destination tourism in Kenya. It can be concluded that Kenya faces severe competition in infrastructure (communication, roads), parks entry charges, promotion of culture of heritage cast line along the coast region and beach tourism. Further conclusions can be made that the development in travel and the tourism sector has led to the sector’s effectiveness leading to rapid market entry of innovative products in other markets. It was therefore concluded that new markets offering similar products as well as destination competitiveness and branding have a positive influence on destination marketing performance in public organizations in Kenya. Keywords: Competition, Destination Marketing, Public Organizations DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/60-04 Publication date:September 30th 201