The Effect Of Promoting Tourism For Sustainable Community Development In Selected Attraction Sites In Kenya. A Case Study Of Meru National Park

ABSTRACT

Destinations are often seen by the tourist as the outwardly facing elements of a tourist product or service, being a place where the consumption occurs. At a global scale, the growth of international tourism and domestic tourism has seen the exponential expansion of places seeking to develop their tourism potential. Even very unlikely and unattractive places have developed a tourism economy, based on the principles of creating a destination and a demand for the products and services they offer, (Stephen J, 2006). The aim of sustainable tourism is to ensure that development brings a positive experience for local people, tourism companies and the tourists themselves. (Mowforth. M 1998). One of the criteria often agreed as essential to the condition of sustainability in any 'new' tourist scheme is the participation of local people. From around the world, however, many examples of the relative lack of power held by local people in tourism developments in their locality have been documented-Brandon (1993) cites over fifty schemes, 'many of which had initiated nature tourism activities, but few of the benefits went to local people (Johnston (1990), Wells and Brandon (1992) and West and Brechin (1991). Marketing Promotion is one of the four elements of marketing mix (product, price, promotion, place). It is the communication link between sellers and buyers for the purpose of influencing, informing, or persuading a potential buyer's purchasing decision. The specification of five elements creates a promotional mixor promotional plan. These elements are personal selling advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity. Fundamentally, however there are three basic objectives of promotion. These are: To present information to consumers as well as others, to increase demand and lastly to differentiate a product (Kurtz, Dave 2010). The study area for this study was Meru National Park. This park receives considerable high numbers of tourists throughout the year and the returns are good. The sample population for this study will be composed of key players in the tourism industry as well as locals living around this attraction site. Appropriate statistical analyses such as frequencies, descriptive, factor analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regressions, Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) were used according to respective objectives and descriptors.