Strategic Responses by Kenya Tourism Board to Changes in the External Environment

Abstract

Organizations are open systems and thus are in constant interaction with the external environment. The external environment is made up of factors outside of the organization that are beyond the firm's control. In order for organizations to survive and gain sustainable competitive advantage, they have to constantly monitor and align themselves to the factors in the external environment. For prosperity and survival, organizations have to devise various strategies that will enable it respond to changes in its external environment. Pearce and Robinson (1991) proposed the grand strategy for surviving in the environment. Porter (1980) proposed the three generic strategies organizations can use to respond to challenges in the external environment. Pearce and Robinson (1991) defined strategic responses as the set of decisions and actions that results in the formulation and implementation of plans designed to achieve the firm’s objectives. The purpose of this study was to establish the strategic responses adopted by Kenya Tourism Board to changes in the external environment. This research was conducted through a case study. The study utilized primary data that was obtained from senior managers using personal interviews. The data collected was qualitative in nature, and was analyzed using conceptual content analysis.The study found out that the organization faced a lot of challenges from its external environment. The most prevalent challenges came from the economic, political, socio-cultural, ecological and technological environments. The study further concludes that to respond to these challenges KTB had adopted various strategies such as market development whereby additional new source markets have been developed through aggressive marketing campaigns. KTB has also embarked on product development and new products like horse riding, bird watching, conference tourism, sports tourism, agro-tourism, medical tourism, camel derby and Park night dinners. Another strategic response was diversification of tourism products like cycling within parks and Rock climbing.KTB has employed a mixture of strategic responses in various facets of its operations in order to ensure that it responds strategically to changes in the external environment. Though not clearly distinct the strategic responses adopted by KTB seem to be in line with the Pearce and Robinson’s (1991) grand strategies of market development, product development, innovations and diversification strategy and Porter’s (1980) generic strategy of Market segmentation. KTB has also adopted the branding strategy to market Kenya as the preferred tourism destination both globally and regionally. The study findings are of significance to managers of institutions involved in tourism such as tour operators, airlines, hoteliers, travel agents, communities as well as non-governmental organizations as it will help them align their firms appropriatelyso as to addressenvironmental changes affecting their organizations.The findings also provide a basis and guidelines to Government agencies such as the department of tourism, ministry of finance, trade and planning and researchorganizations for developing and formulating policies. The findings will further provide abaseline to monitor the trends in strategic responses to environmental changes whileidentifying new challenges and recommendations. Current scholars and future researchers may also use the study as a source of reference on strategic responses and it may act as a basis for further research. The Board needs to do more in communicating its strategies and informing all players in the industry. Further research also needs to be done on the other industry players such as KTF to find out how they plan to fit their strategies to Kenya’s vision 2030.