"List of figuresFigure 4.1 ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 26Figure 4.2……………………………………………………………………………………………..28Figure 4.3……………………………………………………………………………………………..30Table 4.1 ……………………………………………………………………………………………..24Table 4.2 ……………………………………………………………………………………………..25Table 4.3 ………………………………………………………………………………………………27Table 4.4 ………………………………………….……………………………………………………291 CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTION1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDYMarketing is defined as a social and managerial process through which products and services areexchanged in order to fulfill individual or group needs and wants (Kotler 2008). Kotler furtherexplained marketing as meting the need of customers at a profit. Marketing is also a term used torefer to communication between seller and his or her customers with an aim of selling hisproducts and services. This communication might be between an organization and the consumeraudience with an aim of increasing value of the company or its merchandise. The main aim ofmarketing includes creates awareness of your products to your target customers i.e. getting themessage across with appropriate means with the help of printing advertising and writing.Marketer mostly focuses on providing products that meet customers’ expectation or ratheraiming at bridging the gap between demand and supply. Tourism sector has experienced decline in number of tourists due to various reasons whichincludes internal conflicts such as political instability and terrorist attacks. Reduction in numberof chatter flight has also resulted to decrease in number of tourists. Due to reduction of thesechallenges, there is need for proper marketing of tourism destination in Kenya to bring itscompetitive edge to the level of other countries such as Tanzania and Uganda.In Kenya, marketing plays a major role in towards the success of tourism business. Thisis because tourism deals with diverse number of tourists from different part of the world. Thiscalls for getting the message across the entire world through marketing. Taking much interest inmarketing Kenya as destination generally brings about increased tourist flow within the country.Destination marketing facilitates the achievement of tourism policy, which should becoordinated with the regional development strategic plan. Marketing of destinations should alsoguide the tourism impacts optimization and the maximization of benefits for the region. In orderto appreciate the complexity of destination marketing this paper explains the destination conceptand attempts to synthesize several models for strategic marketing and management ofdestinations.2 Aberdare national park is located in Nyeri County where the number of tourist has beendecreasing over the last five years. This calls for strong marketing strategies to overcome thischallenge. It also calls for developing competitive attractions which are stood out.1.2 Problem statement Marketing simply bridges the gap between the attraction offered and the targeted customers.Despite Aberdare national park having too many tourist attractions such as waterfalls twin hills,elephant hill and table mountains, game viewing, treetop hotel and Dedan Kimathi hide outamong others, the number of tourists visiting the place are minimal compared to its potentialcapability.Aberdare as well has a great role to play to ensure it receive the highest number of tourist visitingKenya. This means that strong marketing strategies has to be put in place to ensure thatdistinguishing attractions are well pointed out to bring its competitive edge to the level of otherdestination in Kenya. The purpose of the research is to single out the strategies to be employed inAberdare national park in order to bring out its competitive edge to the level of other destinationwithin the country. The research al also focuses on destination marketing viz. destinationdevelopment, which need to be linked to each other in terms of their differences. The mainpurpose that triggered my interest in conducting this research was to assess the cause of touristreduction in Aberdare national park. The research will also help in designing the best marketingstrategies that will reach adverse customers. Similarly the research will also help to single out theattraction that will bring the competitive edge over other parks. Having known the specificattraction within the park, it will be easier for marketers to know exactly the distinguishingcharacteristics that will make tourists to choose Aberdare national park over other parks withinthe country. The research will also help in identifying the various individuals to involve inmarketing the park and the role each will play in marketing. For instance involving mass mediawill ensure that large number of people within the country receives the information about thepark. Similarly marketing through internet will be of great importance since most of theindividuals nowadays use internet.3 1.3 GENERAL OBJECTIVESTo assess the effectiveness of the marketing strategies adopted by kws.1.4 Specific objectives.1. To identify the marketing strategies adopted by kws in marketing Aberdare national park.2. To determine the marketing tools used in Aberdare national park3. To examine the effectiveness of the marketing strategies adopted by kws. 4. To recommend the ways of improving marketing strategies1.4 Purpose of the studyThe purpose of the study is to assess the how the marketing strategies adopted by kws inmarketing tourism in Kenya are effective. A case study of Aberdare national park.1.5 Research questions1. What strategies are involved in marketing Aberdare national park by kws?2. What are the promotional tools used in Aberdare national park?3. How would you like kws to market Aberdare national park? 1.6 Limitation of the studyCompleting the research process requires enough time which is limited. Various respondentstake a lot of time to give their views. This prolongs the research time and might even end up notcompleting the task.Inadequate money to perform this task is as well another challenge where one may lack thefunding for transport. 4 CHAPTER 2LITERATURE REVIEW. Marketing of tourism destinations is considered a branch of marketing in general andtourism marketing in particular (Middleton, 2000; Mazanec, 1995). This section also aims atgiving consideration and thought to other aspects that may be important for improvement of thedevelopment of marketing strategies for tourism destinations.Generally, it has been accepted that there are different approaches to managementreflected in the company's reference to the marketplace. Thus distinguishing between variousproduction and selling approaches, moving from product orientation to a marketing focus(Kotler, 1997). Here four different concepts are presented:Tourism destinations are unique entities from a marketing point of view. Normally, whendealing with a strategy formulation process, this takes place for a single service, event etc. or atleast within a single company, a separate legal entity. Although many tourism destinations are inpossession of a destination marketing or management organization these cannot operate as ifthey were an independent corporation detached from other businesses. Despite clear indicationsof tourism not being a single industry, it has been chosen throughout this thesis to refer to thetourism industry, indicating the numerous stakeholders that are involved in supplying the tourismexperience for the visitor to a destination. Remote areas are somewhat disadvantaged as theyhave a certain dependence on the center region they are linked to. Often remote areas representgreat natural beauty and other values that attract visitors (Hall and Brown, 1999). This indicatesthat rural tourism destinations work under different presuppositions than tourism destinations incentral areas, e. g. city destinations. It is therefore of interest, whether the strategy developmentprocess at a rural region differs from the process in a center region, and if this is so, whether achange in the process could enhance the marketing effort of a rural destination. There is anelement of cooperation with others in general, and cooperation within the destination inparticular, which needs to be investigated5 "