Quality, Productivity and Competitive

Tourism Destination Competitiveness: The Case of Kenya

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
To achieve competitive advantage for its tourism industry, any destination must ensure its overall attractiveness, and the tourist experience must be superior to that of the many alternative destinations open to potential visitors. This study focuses on the competitiveness of Kenya as a tourist destination and the factors that influence its position in the world market. Destination managers, planners and developers need to be aware of factors that influence attractiveness in order to improve and maintain destination competitiveness. Tourism is the world‟s fastest growing export industry, and managers face complex and difficult challenges in their efforts to develop and manage tourism destinations that have the capability to perform effectively in an increasingly competitive international marketplace, especially for countries in which tourism is an important part of the economy.

1.2 Defining competitiveness
The noun „competitiveness‟ is derived from the English adjective „competitive‟, which is defined by the Oxford dictionary (Online edition, 2005) as
1.

relating to or characterised by competition

2.

strongly desiring to be more successful than others

3.

as good as or better than others of a comparable nature

From the above definition, we can deduce that competitiveness arises in the context of several participants engaged in similar activities, each trying to get ahead of his opponent. Competitive advantage therefore involves creating and maintaining superior performance (Porter, 1985). This performance may be in form of goods, services or both.
In a world where technology and lifestyles are continually changing the way things are done, competition for increasingly scarce resources stimulates creativity on a large scale to cater for growing and more sophisticated demand. Competitive Strategy then becomes an important part of

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