Promoting Maasai Mara as a Tourist Destination - Essay Example

Assignment title: - Assessment 3—Case Study Analytical Report Student’s full name Tutor’s Name Course Date Table of contents I Introduction 3 II Discussion 3 A) Ritual-oriented festival tourism: Cultural impacts 4 B) Community involvement: Social impacts 6 C) Destination marketing: Economic impacts 9 D) Industry Involvement: Economic impacts 11 E) Sustainability of food, wine, and festival tourism: Environmental and political impacts 12 III Conclusion 12 References 14 Appendices 16 Introduction Maasai Mara is a well known tourist destination for its scenery, wildebeest migration, the big five, entertainments and delicious cuisines. Apart from that, tourists also associate this destination with its rich cultural heritage as well as the warmth of the Maasai people. From the BBC documentary Maisai Mara wildebeest migration also named as the seven wonder of the world and relies on its tourism industry for a sustainable economy, creating jobs as well as to develop the quality of life in all regions. However, due to post election violence of that country in 2007/2008; its reputation as a safe and secure tourist destination has been blemished. To counter the ill-effects of this unprecedented event the authorities have been trying to promote this destination through many events, festivals and activities such as the new YORK Maasai Mara promotional event, the Berlin event , London Maasai culture and Festival, Food festival, and many others. It should be noted only two communities, the Aborigine of Australia and Maasai of Kenya have kept their culture without changing for a long period. The authorities have extended its efforts to promote this destination through more innovative modes like television, actress endorsement as well as Public Relation (PR) campaigns. Unfortunately, all these efforts are not sufficient to boost tourists’ motivation to travel to Maasai Mara. The present report is an attempt to plan such event/s that can augment the efforts being made by authorities and other authorities to promote Maasai Mara as a tourist destination. Discussion Intention to organize one distinctive event that can provide a positive trigger for the tourism industry that is already reeling under intense pressure. The organization of Maasai Mara traditional and wine competition is to promote Maasai Mara as a tourist destination. Since Maasai Mara is already an internationally recognized tourist destination we are simply trying to revamp its image among prospective tourists. The ratio of domestic tourist vis-à-vis foreign tourists in Maasai Mara is quite balanced as an impressive number of domestic tourists from various districts of Maasai Mara keep on visiting Maasai Mara round the year. Given the large number of local tourists, it is very important to focus on this target group to establish Maasai Mara as the tourist hub. Although this group spends less than its international counterpart, it provides a local tinge to the tourist landscape thus attracting international travellers to the place. The big influx of the local tourism help the local economy more as the tourist movement from the interiors triggers positive business gains for smaller players in travel and transport business. However, due to floods domestic tourism was adversely affected as the road and rail link between central region and northern regions was blocked temporarily(Getz, 2007). Ritual-oriented festival tourism: Cultural impacts The impacts of these festivals are many for example they can be social, cultural, economical, environmental, political and sustainable. The social impacts of such a festival are very strong. This can be seen by how people get to come together and socialize together. People from different cultures and countries come to this functions they get to interact and also get to share different ideas that others may not have in their cultures. People also get to find their long term partners in such festivals therefore bringing about the ability of a decrease in tribalism and racism. The cultural impact is that many of these festivals are usually about getting to bring out something out in a culture that the people of that particular culture seem to have forgotten. This therefore brings about the longitivity of cultural traits because they get to be show cased at least once a year therefore making the people aware of its existence. Culturally it also gets people from different cultures to get to learn more or some of the things in other people’s cultures when they get to attend these festivals. The socio-cultural impacts of Ritual-oriented festival tourism are undoubted despite the fact that most researchers have neglected this area in their research. Notably, Ritual-oriented festival tourism impacts the society and the surrounding environment in different ways as a result of events. Such impacts are both positive and negative. For instance, it increases local, regional, and national pride that helps in propagating of new knowledge and various social contacts. Negative socio-cultural impacts of Ritual-oriented festival tourism are often associated to the split of the local community, erosion of valuable culture and traditions at the expense of economic gain, and social pressures to meet the tourism standards. The later often result into alteration of the culture and the social orientation of the host region. This report is therefore designed to explore various socio-cultural impacts of events and how it relates to marketing. Ritual-oriented festival tourism has been cited to possess the capacity to strengthening the traditions and values that exist in a given region (Fine 1992, p. 263). Such values might be reflected on both the host and the visitors and often occur in events such as sports, arts, and music festive. In such cases, the crowd might opt to utilize various forms of events to disapprove the historical beliefs on their behaviour during such events while propagating the positive socio-cultural gains that emerge from the events. Ritual-oriented festival tourism is expected to report high rates of bad behaviour among the spectators. However, the organizers of this event carefully planned and managed the event in readiness to eliminate any misbehaviour from the crowed. Consequently, the crowd managed to disapprove the historical beliefs and instead utilized their social and cultural differences to strengthen their traditions, values and beliefs thereby displaying how events can provide positive socio-cultural impacts through various forms of entertainment experience (Yeoman, Robertson & Ali-Knight, 2006, p. 316). Secondly, through various events both the local host and the visitors get an opportunity to actively participate and/or get involved in the activity that is in-line with event. In doing so, the events offer the community an opportunity to gain civic pride and foster the community’s culture, beliefs, and values. Raj & Musgrave, (2009. p. 79) emphasized that various communities often utilized events to make their ceremonies and rituals realistic. In such cases, the communities incorporate their lifestyle, beliefs, values, and traditions with other forms of such as skills and crafts thereby making such socio-cultural genre unique and new form of life not only to the visitors, but also to the host community. It is further argued that, such combinations are critical and significant in inspiring and propagating the local pride of the host community which can only be achieved during the event (Raj & Musgrave, 2009. p. 79-80). Ritual-oriented festival tourism are often meant to promote social interaction, some communities and organizers of events have taken advantage of such opportunities to commercialize the activities (Fine 1992, p. 262-3). This has therefore propagated the spirit economic gain thereby leading to loss and destruction the rich socio-cultural values and traditions that are imbedded in different cultures. Owing to the fact that the modern society is driven by the spirit of capitalism, socio-cultural impacts of events have received very limited formal attention. That is, the socio-cultural benefits of events have been underestimated by event developers. That has therefore led to the modifications of the nature of events, activities, or attractions in order to meet tourism standards. The economic wing of events has certainly made the socio-cultural impacts of events to be esteemed lowly. This has in itself made the socio-cultural aspects of events to impact distribution, marketing, competence, and innovation negatively (Ali-Knight, Robertson & Fyall 2006, p. 48). Certain events impose life threatening experiences to individuals living close to the areas where they are staged. Such events include motorsport events which are known to subject the localized residents to noise, traffic and parking and access restrictions. According to Ritchie & Adair, (2004, p. 166-7) this implies that the event might restrict the level at which the local residents are allowed to interact and socialize with one another. Community involvement: Social impacts The food and wine festivals usually have stakeholders; these are the people or companies that are involved in a certain project, in most cases they have invested money in it. The stakeholders of these festivals are usually the host community; these are the community that the cultural theme is got from and are ready to tell more about their cultures meanings. The sponsor are also very important, they are the people or the company that funds the whole affair. The funds are mostly in terms of money but can also be in terms of food stuffs. The sponsors in most cases do this as a way of marketing themselves because they know if the festival is a success and their name is attached it definitely people will look up to it. The co-workers and participants are the people who get to be more involved in the arrangement of the festival. This starts from the people who sit down to plan for the festival, those who give out the venue to be used for the festival, the decorators, the cooks who get to prepare the meals that are to be eaten, the people who tend the grounds or keep everything clean for the festival. The spectators on the other hand are the people who get to watch or attend the festival. They get to attend the festival and taste the food and wine and get to comment on them. They get to say how good or bad the whole affair has been therefore being the ones who give the review. For a very long time the host community members did not view various festivals or invents positively. This was based on the perceived notion that such events were impacted the socio-cultural statures of the community negatively apart from the economic gains that the locales accrued fro organized events and festive. Consequently, the socio-cultural benefits that could be obtained from such events were considered as by products and not the actual profit. In essence, most large-scale events have been characterized by increased crime rates. Such crimes are not limited petty crime, but are also characterized by other forms of crime such as vandalism. Regrettably is the fact that most of these crimes are usually committed by other spectators who are either locals or visitors. Good examples of such crime occasion include the America’s Cup Yacht Race in 1987 and the Winter Olympics of 1980 that saw increase in the rate of both petty and vandalism crimes (Yeoman, Robertson & Ali-Knight, 2006, p. 316). Events also market regions through creation of real and imagined symbols. This is based on the fact that various forms of events require and utilize varied structures. Such structures are often built or availed by the event management or event sponsors so as to ensure that the event succeeds in the long run even if the host region did not have them. However, once such structures and facilities are availed to the region for the event, they are usually not destroyed after the event. Most of such facilities have become permanent statements which are then utilized to store information (Fine 1992, p. 266). Socio-cultural aspects events are also associated with product development. This is based on the ability of events to attract, accelerate, and promote the expansion and improvement of the host region’s infrastructure. Through such infrastructural developments, regions are able to appear in the prime line thereby attracting individuals and firms. In practice, infrastructural developments in regions hosting events have marketed such regions because of their well developed first-class sporting facilities (Fine 1992, p. 266). Such facilities though constructed for various events in the past, have to date remained high-performance and recreational sports facilities that are not only being recognized, but being utilized in the whole world (Fine 1992, p. 266). Destination marketing: Economic impacts To develop a tourist spot for the overall well being of the local economy and community, destination marketing and branding is an important field. This field is becoming a vital instrument in the hands of national governments, local bodies, trade organizations, and non-governmental bodies to support local economies across the world. It provides a win-win situation for all as it generates increased business while providing a great sense of enjoyment for the target audiences. It involves understanding tourist behaviors, preferences, perceptions attitudes as these are the very basic factors that a destination development team can focus before developing a successful strategy. This approach requires a proactive stance from the organizers as they strategize to develop certain activities around which target tourists can be attracted to a particular site. The choice of promotional activity depends largely on the present status of the destination as regards its acceptability among tourists. On this count Maasai Mara very well placed as it is an internationally acclaimed tourist destination. The choice of activity is further dependent on the local culture and the reasons behind tourists’ preference for the site. In case of Maasai people visit this place for leisure fun and frolic(Damster and Tassiopoulos, D 2006). Developing a strategy for destination marketing and branding requires a development manager to understand as to ‘what to sell’ to its target customers. It is not necessary that every destination would have great flora and fauna, picturesque scenes, or great historical monuments. Sometimes it becomes necessary to create an event around which tourist can be attracted to a place. The role and importance of events marketing in the overall scheme of destination marketing and branding cannot be over emphasized as events account for most of the visitors across the world. These events have great capacity to pull crowds as they enjoy events on a vacation (Besculides, Lee and McCormick, 2002) Apart from sporting events cultural events, academic events like book fairs, industrial and trade events like industrial fairs, trade fairs, national days etc. attract not only global tourist but also stir local tourists as they are pulled towards the place of action. Tourism can make the city a better place to live, visit, work and invest in and so the standard of living goes up, and the quality of life improves, and the profile of the city is raised, and (this process) goes round in a circle (Pike, 2008) Although events are organized once in a long period of time they have long term effects as they help in creating a brand image and sustaining it for a long time in relation to the destination being promoted. For example recent Olympics in London has put London back on the tourist minds and this memory of Olympics will linger on till next Olympics are held somewhere else. Same was witnessed in Beijing when it hosted Olympics. Thus events play a vital role in lending long term sustainability for tourism in the destination. Any destination is a summation of a large number of people, authorities, cultures, businesses, religions, social formations etc. Destination marketing efforts face the greatest challenge of managing various attributes of a given destination. Destinations have multiple players working in their respective domains in a manner that is very complex to understand. All these suppliers have their own ways of functioning that may or may not coincide with each other. The biggest challenge before Destination marketing organization lies in hammering out a strategy that is acceptable to all these stakeholders. Another issue that concerns the DMOs is their inability to control the offers being made by different players in a tourist market. Any fierce competition or clash between various intermediaries may thwart the whole process Destination marketing is faced with multifarious challenges as clash of interest generally surfaces while negotiating with multiple players. Organizations involved in destination marketing have to fine tune their strategy and operations so as to accommodate competing demands from various stakeholders. Political interference and resistance from certain ideologies provide yet another source of hindrance for destination marketing. It is the job of a good destination marketer to create a balance between all the above factors. The field of destination marketing and branding has become increasingly challenging as different destinations are fighting for the same space. This fight will intensify in the future. At the same time this field is developing very fast with more and more specialized professionals entering the fray. Most of the governments across the world are hiring professional services for destination marketing and branding. At the same time this subject is being developed by the academia with more and more research being conducted by premier institutions. Industry Involvement: Economic impacts Economically, the festivals bring out the nature of people spending some of their earnings to get what they usually miss in other times. People also get to attend these festivals in large crowds if the festivals are done in a good and professional way because they will get to tell others of the affair that they find to be good therefore a large turnout. By this happening, its popularity increases not just locally but internationally as well. By this happening the country gets foreign currency from its international visitors. By this, the more tourists that attend the festivals together with the local people by paying good money therefore the growth of the economy. Sustainability of food, wine, and festival tourism: Environmental and political impacts – This event shall undoubtedly produce positive results for all the stakeholders. To sustain this positive result this event can be planned on annual basis. In case the event gets good media attention the next season may attract even better dance groups from Europe and the US. Another way of sustaining this event is to organize it on annual basis but in different places in Thailand. This can help in promoting the whole country while keeping the tourist interest alive. Politically, the festivals usually in most cases have positive effects. By inviting people from different countries to attend such festivals and getting to give them good treatment, the governments where those people get to come from get to see that a political relationship with such kind of people to be good. By this, the country that hosts the festival gets to have many political relations just because of their good naturalness. These festivals can also be arranged with the theme being not from the host country but from another that the people decide on. By doing this, they get to look for more information from those people therefore having communication in between countries. By doing this, people from these countries get to have close relationships that stretches to good political relationships. This can be seen for example when o Kenyan organizer of the festival decides to use a French theme. This will mean asking for assistance from the French therefore communication occurs that sets the idea of a good political relationship. Conclusion When one manages to attain and check on the above factors then the possibility of having a good and successful food and wine festival will surely be high. Considering the venue, location, theme and also having a well planned program can cause a very successful festival that will cause a roar and will be the talk for a long time. By this happening, the next festival that will get to be organized by the same sponsors or even at the same venue will not need a lot of advertisement. People will already want to go with no further pushing. Therefore for people to attain a good and successful function, they ought to look keenly at all these things. References Ali-Knight, J, Robertson, M & Fyall, A 2006, International perspectives of festivals and events: paradigms of analysis, S.I. Besculides, A, Lee, ME & McCormick, PJ 2002, ‘Residents' perceptions of the cultural benefits of tourism’, Annals of Tourism Research, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 303-319. Damster, G & Tassiopoulos, D 2006, Event management: a professional and development approach, 2nd edn, Juta Academic, Lansdowne. Fine, SH 1992. Marketing the public sector: promoting the causes of public and nonprofit agencies, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, U.S.A. Getz, D 2007, Event studies: theory, research and policy for planned events, Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. 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Robinson, P, Wale, D & Dickson, G 2010, Events management, CABI, Cambridge, MA. Yeoman, I, Robertson, M & Ali-Knight, J 2004. Festival and events management: an international arts and culture perspective. Boston: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston. Appendix Read More