CHALLENGES FACING TOURISM PROMOTION IN KIAMBU COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

The Vision 2030 and Tourism County Promotion Master Plans were envisaged to provide a good starting point for county tourism promotion however a number of challenges must be addressed to ensure competitiveness in the sector. The purpose of this research study is to assess challenges facing tourism promotion in Kiambu county, the specific objectives of the study were to find out the extent to which infrastructure and security affect tourism promotion in Kiambu county. The study used descriptive research design; data was collected from primary sources with the use of questionnaires. The study analyzed the data, using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS), descriptive and inferential statistics such as frequencies, tables. Percentages and correlation tests were used in the data analysis and summaries. Respondents were asked to respond to a set of statements on the likert scale where 5=strongly agreed, 4= agreed 3= neutral, 2= disagree, 1= strongly disagree. Most respondents had enough knowledge to understand and respond to the questions, descriptive analysis was used to summarize data regarding infrastructure and security and challenges on tourism promotion. It’s evident that majority of the respondents strongly agreed that infrastructure, and security affect tourism promotion in Kiambu county. The researcher conducted a Correlation analysis us to investigate the existence and nature of relationship between infrastructure and security on tourism promotion. The study concludes that tourism promotion is strongly influenced by infrastructure with 41.4% change followed by safety and respectively as indicated by a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.653** and 611** This relationship was found to be statistically significant as the significant value was 0.010 which is less than 0.05 threshold. To achieve efficiency in the sector, efforts have to be undertaken to address impending challenges responsible for the stunted growth of the country’s tourism sector. The researcher recommends for further research on a wider scope for instance all counties in Kenya, while considering all challenges in the sector since the study could not exhaust all the challenges affecting tourism product promotion. Keywords: Product, Promotion, Tourism, Challenges, Kiambu County.