Effectiveness Of Advertising Campaigns On Domestic Tourism Destination In Tanzania: A Case Of Tanzania National Parks

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of advertising strategies used by Tanzania national parks authority (TANAPA) in Tanzania and how these strategies influence market performances in the tourism destination. The population of study was domestic visitors to the 16 national parks maintained by TANAPA across the country, but sample was considered from 5 top performers only (Serengeti, manyara, Arusha, mikumi and tarangire National parks. Descriptive and cross sectional research design was adopted and semi structured questionnaires tools were administered to 399 sample respondents. Collected data was entered into SPSS and analyzed using Structural equation modeling (SEM). It was revealed that TANAPA employs equally various advertising objectives on domestic tourism destination marketing campaigns. TANAPA marketing campaigns since 2016 found with little influence on converting potential customers into customers and little capability to influence both intentions to revisit and spread positive word of mouth. Finally it was concluded that, TANAPA advertisements have not been so much effective in influencing the local arrivals. To large extent, current visits in the country’s 16 national parks are influenced by number of other factors than marketing campaigns. It was made clear that advertising objectives influence performance of domestic tourism destination marketing campaigns in both positive and negative ways. Therefore recommended that, in the changing consumer behavior environments and increased competition, the seasonality of tourism business and the critical role played by advertisements in market performance, it is advised that, tourism organizations managers put more emphasize in improving market campaigns decisions to increase market performance, understanding the underlying situations and the intended advertising objectives so to change with volatile market communication strategies.