The Factors Influencing Individuals/Groups to Undertake Tours: The Case of Selected Individuals in Mombasa County Introduction Tourism in Kenya is one of the largest source of foreign exchange, only second to Agriculture. The main attractions are wildlife, athletes, game reserves and beautiful sceneries in Kenya. Mombasa County is one of the leading tourist attraction areas in Kenya both by locals and foreigners. Lee Jolliffe, in her book Tea and Tourism: Tourists, Traditions and Transformations, argues that Kenyan tourism hasn’t developed on its conservation of natural resources, though “beach tourism, eco-tourism, cultural tourism, sports tourism all form part of the portfolio” (Jolliffe, 2007). Kenya won the Best Leisure Destination award at the World Travel Fair in Shanghai, China, in April 2008. The permanent secretary in Kenya’s Ministry of Tourism, Rebecca Nabutola, stated that the award “goes to testify that Kenya has a unique world acclaimed tourism product. The recognition will no doubt boost Kenya’s tourism and enhance its profile as a leading tourist destination.” Mombasa County is one of the 47 newly created counties in Kenya comprising: Changamwe, Jomvu, Kisauni, Nyali, Likoni and Mvita constituencies with the major town being Mombasa Town which is the second largest town in Kenya. Mombasa is an important tourism center due to its vast diversity of culture, beaches, old towns, hotels and restaurants, wildlife and economic activity. Mombasa is the original Arabic name for Mombasa and this city has an average population of about 1 million people. Mombasa is a place rich in history, yet at the same time fascinating commercial and cosmopolitan port town. Mombasa is an island connected to the mainland by bridges and ferries. The town overlooks a wide harbor, where commercial shipping mingles with traditional sailing dhows. The true heart of Mombasa is found in the exotic old town, among the narrow winding streets and Arab architecture (Magical Kenya, 2015). This paper will focus on factors affecting decision making by tourist by using Mombasa County as the case study.  Statement of the problem Due to her high touristic potential and capacity, Mombasa’s tourism represents a fast growing sector of the economy. All over the region and the world at large, Mombasa represents an important attractive destination for many tourists who still consider it as a world prototype; consequently, the high demand has been increasing from one year to another. This strategic sector, however, still has to deal with: the large capital required to invest in this sector, poor government support, low level of technology in the country, poor infrastructure, lack of social services, diseases and natural calamities, expensive tourism facilities which may scare tourists away, environmental pollution, encroachment, terrorism and kidnapping of tourists. The Government should play the key role here by formulating legislation that support tourism and provide .

1. The Factors Influencing Individuals/Groups to Undertake Tours:
The Case of Selected Individuals in Mombasa County
Introduction
Tourism in Kenya is one of the largest source of foreign
exchange, only second to Agriculture. The main attractions are
wildlife, athletes, game reserves and beautiful sceneries in
Kenya. Mombasa County is one of the leading tourist attraction
areas in Kenya both by locals and foreigners. Lee Jolliffe, in her
book Tea and Tourism: Tourists, Traditions and
Transformations, argues that
Kenyan
tourism hasn’t developed on its conservation of natural
resources, though “beach tourism, eco-tourism, cultural tourism,
sports tourism all form part of the portfolio” (Jolliffe, 2007).
Kenya won the Best Leisure Destination award at the World
Travel Fair in Shanghai, China, in April 2008. The permanent
secretary in Kenya’s Ministry of Tourism, Rebecca Nabutola,
stated that the award “goes to testify that Kenya has a unique
world acclaimed tourism product. The recognition will no doubt
boost Kenya’s tourism and enhance its profile as a leading
tourist destination.” Mombasa County is one of the 47 newly
created counties in Kenya comprising: Changamwe, Jomvu,
Kisauni, Nyali, Likoni and Mvita constituencies with the major
town being Mombasa Town which is the second largest town in
Kenya.
Mombasa is an important tourism center due to its vast diversity
of culture, beaches, old towns, hotels and restaurants, wildlife
and economic activity. Mombasa is the original Arabic name for
Mombasa and this city has an average population of about 1
million people. Mombasa is a place rich in history, yet at the

2. same time fascinating commercial and cosmopolitan port town.
Mombasa is an island connected to the mainland by bridges and
ferries. The town overlooks a wide harbor, where commercial
shipping mingles with traditional sailing dhows. The true heart
of Mombasa is found in the exotic old town, among the narrow
winding streets and Arab architecture (Magical Kenya, 2015).
This paper will focus on factors affecting decision making by
tourist by using Mombasa County as the case study.
Statement of the problem
Due to her high touristic potential and capacity, Mombasa’s
tourism represents a fast growing sector of the economy. All
over the region and the world at large, Mombasa represents an
important attractive destination for many tourists who still
consider it as a world prototype; consequently, the high demand
has been increasing from one year to another. This strategic
sector, however, still has to deal with: the large capital required
to invest in this sector, poor government support, low level of
technology in the country, poor infrastructure, lack of social
services, diseases and natural calamities, expensive tourism
facilities which may scare tourists away, environmental
pollution, encroachment, terrorism and kidnapping of tourists.
The Government should play the key role here by formulating
legislation that support tourism and provide both financial and
marketing support to curb the tourism menace.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of
how different factors can influence individuals/groups to visit a
tourism location. https://iacademicessay.com/2021/06/01/im-
working-on-a-art-discussion-question-and-need-an-explanation-
to-help-me-lear/ This is achieved through studying scenarios of
tourism from different parts of the world. The extensive review
of literature, including any article or book related to tourism for

3. a wide base of research and better understanding of the topic.
The study focuses on finding out the different factors identified
in relevant literature as being significant to the choice of tourist
destinations by tourists by using Mombasa as a case study.
Through a study of each of these factors and the interdependent
relationships that concomitantly developed among these factors,
an understanding of what happens in the real world is explored.
Objectives of the Study
The general objective of this study is to come up with as many
factors as possible on the forces that affect the tourist choices
and how the negative factors can be remedied. The study tries to
steer learning and sense making aptitudes in translating social,
authoritative and individual impacts identified with tourism.
The objective incorporates looking at oblivious and cognizant
thinking processes by tourists in settings that identify with
tourism in Mombasa County.
Research questions
Is the Government doing enough to support tourism in Kenya?
What services are available for visitors? Are there Budget-
friendly options in the area? What sets Mombasa County apart
from other similar locations? What economic factors affect
tourism in the region? How safe is the country? The research
question were not limited to these questions, these questions
were meant as a guide as to what the researcher required out of
the research.
Literature Review
The study viewed a large number of literature resources that are
concerned with tourism of different parts of the world and the
factor that affect different tourism destinations. The study used
empirical-based research reports, academic and non-academic

4. research reports to increase the area of research.
Regardless of the importance of destination marking in both the
educated community and industry, literature on its calculated
improvement is limited. An extraordinary image is a segment of
destination brand affiliations. The general picture/image of the
destination is a go-between its image/brand affiliations (i.e.,
subjective and emotional) and visitors’ future practices (i.e.,
expectations to return to and recommend to others). General
image is affected by brand affiliations and is a basic go between
brand affiliations and travelers’ future practices. Distinctive
systems can be sought after to accomplish more prominent name
acknowledgment among potential guests. Usually, this includes
focusing on potential guests to a territory. Marketing is an
important factor in ensuring a tourist destination is known to
the world.
Tourism destinations and their individual tourism organizations
are all competing for the uses and essentialness that sightseers
convey to their separate areas. Yet, in settling on travel
decisions, these vacationers have contemplations other than
distance, cost and timing. They are additionally considering the
everyday climate and other atmosphere elements while deciding
both where to go and the degree to which they making the most
of their travel experience. Tourism companies are using climate
change as a marketing tool, offering to take people to places
endangered by global warming or with species on the verge of
extinction (TreeHugger, 2015). Tourist will tend to avoid areas
that have adverse weather conditions that will affect their visit
while at the same time they would like to experience a hotter or
colder climate with respect to their native land.
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5. Family travelers liked to stay at hotel facilities giving items and
services particularly intended to take into account family
vacationers, including rebates for youngsters’ stay, a swimming
pool with lifeguard, and discount packages for families (Yang,
Wong & Wang, 2012). National hotel chains as of now
presented additional huge rooms, furnished with all the more
bed options to cater for family vacationers. Despite the fact that
it is vital to fathom the business sector pattern and to create
tourism items and services because of the pattern, powerful
tourism advertising will be expanded when industry specialists
see what buyers need from their get-away as well as how
purchasers settle on their travel choices.
Long & Nuckolls (1994) underscore the need for effective
planning and stress that technical assistance can prove crucial to
tourism development success for many small communities with
limited resources. In numerous communities, tourism serves as
an imperative contributor to the nearby, regional, and national
economies, and now and again is a noteworthy patron to
domestic economic income. Since security episodes may have a
noteworthy negative effect on these economies, such
occurrences are regularly a reason for real sympathy toward
nearby, regional, and national governments.
McDaniel’s (2001) article of southwestern Virginia, which
highlights the tourism potential of the region’s scenic and
abundant recreational activities, is an emphasis on the
importance of heritage and history in tourism. Heritage tourism
alludes to recreation travel that has involves visiting historical
places. A main worry of heritage tourism is verifiable
genuineness and long haul maintainability of the historical
location or object. Apart from heritage tourism, another type of
tourism is eco-tourism which is concerned with the conservation
of the natural environment and the wildlife. The third form of
tourism is the agri-tourism where an individual can visit a

6. destination purposefully for agricultural purpose.
To better understand the supply-side development of sport
tourism Kurtzman & Zauhar, (2005) have identified five major
areas: attractions, resorts, cruises, tours, and events. Sport
tourism visits takes tourists to their most loved game occasion
or destination across the globe. The sport tourism can either be
organized by an entity for its members or it can be self guided.
Gil-Pareja, Llorca-Vivero & Martínez-Serrano (2007) argue that
the Euro has induced effects also on the expansion of business
tourism as a consequence of the positive impact of the EMU on
trade creation. Tourism sector is highly dependent on both
macro and microeconomic factors of a country. A high inflation
rate like in Zimbabwe is likely to scare tourists away because of
the increased prices of goods and services. The tax and
exchange rates of a country should be favorable for a country to
attract tourists’ especially international ones.
The safety and security in the tourism industry has been
identified as one of the forces causing changes in the tourism
sector in the new millennium (Edgell et al., 2008). Security
reasons are among the high ranking reasons why a tourist would
decide to visit a destination or not. Over the recent past,
countries have been issuing travel bans to their citizens due to
issues of insecurity and political stability. Security does not
only involve personal safety of tourists and their property, but it
includes an ability to become oriented in an alien environment,
understand the local system of signs, indications, and social
conventions, and finally the security of shopping and consumer
services (Popescu, 2011).
Buhalis & Deimezi (2003) suggests that e-tourism reflects the
digitization of all processes and value chains in the tourism,
travel, hospitality and catering industries. To increase
efficiency in the tourism sector, tourism destinations have been

7. able to integrate innovative and technological systems such as
computer reservation systems to boost convenience in tourism.
Technology has reduced the world into a global village where
people can interact from different parts of the world at the
comfort of their living room. Technology has enabled tourist to
seek information they want online, book reservations and also
transact cash electronically. Some of the concepts used in e-
tourism include e-marketing, e-procurement and e-finance.
Research Design
The research adopted qualitative study mainly because the
subject matter of the research is more concerned with
behavioral science rather than the number of tourists visiting
different destinations. The qualitative approach is important
because of the collection of data from individuals who
previously visited Kenya and especially Mombasa and have
firsthand information of the natural setting. The qualitative
approach will assist in obtaining in-depth information about the
factors affecting the behaviors of tourists in choosing a tourist
destination.
Qualitative research is used as an exploratory tool that is used
to find in-depth insights on a particular phenomenon, and it is
important for obtaining new ideas (Bryman, 2007). There is
scattered information about decision making process by tourists
therefore a qualitative study can be helpful in gathering
information on the topic. A quantitative approach would not be
desirable in this research because there is no statistical
hypothesis that needs to be validated. Qualitative studies are
used to determine the characteristic behaviors and emotions of
people. Qualitative research is flexible when it comes to carry
out a research therefore it can assist in obtain in-depth
information on tourist decision making. It will be important to
use semi-structured methods of data collection and analysis to
cover the different areas in the research.

8. The use of qualitative research in this study is desirable because
behavioral coding can be used to convert qualitative data into
quantitative data, but it would be difficult to convert
quantitative data into qualitative data. The main disadvantage of
using quantitative approach in this study is the inability of the
approach to reach many participants to gather a lot of
information on the topic. The study has targeted tourist who
have gone to Mombasa; this will be a difficult task to find them
in order to reduce biasness in the results desired. Quantitative
approach has the capacity to obtain a lot of information in a
short period of time, and it is cost-effective (Bryman, 2006).
The target population of this study will be individuals who have
been in Mombasa Kenya as tourists. There are many people who
have visited Mombasa, but it is difficult for the researcher to
locate them in a certain geographical area. Therefore random
sampling could not be possible, the participants were chosen on
the basis of “whoever is available.” The research targeted thirty
individuals who had visited the country in at least the past ten
years. The research also targeted corporate trips and family
trips to the country. The relatively small sized population n=30
was chosen because of time, labour and financial constraints.
Research Method
The data collection instruments used for this study include
questionnaires, interviews, and study documentation. To
increase the scope of research, the researcher had to email most
of the participants the questionnaires; information was also
sought through email from reputable resorts and restaurants in
Mombasa, and direct interviews were carried out to individuals
who could be available for face to face interview with the
researcher. Interviews were also carried out through phone and
Skype due to geographic challenge.

9. Interviews
Semi-structured interviews were employed in the studies that
questioned the participants through phone calls, Skype and face
to face interaction. The face to face interviews were more
informative because the researcher could ask follow up
questions and clarification without being concerned with time.
The questions that were asked were not leading and were meant
to find meaning to the aspects that affect tourism destination
decision making. The interview served the purpose of narrating
a lived experience in the tourist destination by looking at the
whole experience in different context e.g., cultural and social
contexts. The interview objective was to uncover new insights
and understanding of the phenomenon under study. The
interaction with the interviewee will help understand the
behavior under study in its natural setting.
Interview is an important data collection instrument in eliciting
the meaning of behavioral elements and experiences. A data-
rich in meaning would be provided by the interviewees by
narrating their experiences as stories, the researcher ensured
that the interview was casual as possible. The
interviewer/researcher would record the interviewee and also
take important notes from the interviewee’s experience in
Mombasa. An interview guide was constructed that was in line
with the research objectives and research questions. The
interview was intended to be flexible and cover the subject
matter widely. The interviewees were asked to narrate their
experience in Mombasa and determine areas of weakness and
strength in the destinations, follow up questions were used to
reinforce their stance.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires were used purposefully to cover more grounds
where interview could not cover. All the questionnaires were

10. sent through email. The research used semi-structured
questionnaires that guided the participants on the desired
results. The questions in the questionnaires were aligned with
those of the interviews by requiring the participants to just
outline their experiences, the destination strength and
weaknesses. The questionnaires were simple enough to prevent
instances of rejection by the participants due to complexity. The
questionnaires were cost effective and ensured a wide
population was reached within a short period of time (Langley,
2004).
Study documentation
The study utilized online resources and journals that were up to
date to seek more information of Mombasa as a tourist
destination. The online resources provided insightful
information about Mombasa like the Hotels and Restaurants
available, the infrastructure, the beaches, culture and heritage,
and tourist sites that can be visited (One of the sites is
http://www.mombasa.com/v/attractions/). An example of an
insightful journal is “Journal of Sustainable Tourism.” Study
documentations exuded partiality and biasness because they
only looked at the positive aspects of the tourist destination.
Data Analysis
The data collection instruments were insightful in obtaining
data that could be merged and transformed into useful
information. The researcher studied the feedback from the
questionnaires, notes and interviews recordings, and the study
documentation to come up with a comprehensive analysis of the
phenomenon under study. The researcher analyzed the data in
reference with the literature review for guidance and
understanding. The researcher first transcribed the data before
organizing it. Open coding was carried out first where data with
similar text were coded together; this was followed by axial

11. coding, which involved coding the open coded data according to
concepts presented in the interviews and questionnaires.
Most of the participants thought that the Kenyan Shilling was
relatively weak compared to other currencies, and the inflation
rate was a little bit high, which had an impact on their choice of
this destination. But it was noticeable that most of them viewed
Kenya as not having many tourism taxes, which may be an
incentive to attract more tourists. The majority of the tourists
thought that the prices of basic commodities had hiked over the
past five years. Even though most participants acknowledged
the government’s participation through the Kenya Tourism
Board, a few believed that the government hadn’t done enough,
and were it not for the private sector pro-activeness, the tourism
sector in Kenya would have been way behind. Most of them
viewed the government as having failed in terms of strategies
and plans when it comes to tourism.
The participants stated that Mombasa is popularly known out
there. Most of them said they learnt about it through the social
media. When it came to marketing, the majority believed that
Mombasa was not adequately marketed out there, and they
blamed it mainly on the lack of government participation and
lack of technological know-how. Athletics topped the list when
it came to sport tourism, Kenya is a home of athletic talent, and
many would go there to see them run. Other sports that would
make tourists visit Kenya are Rugby, Safari rally and Cricket.
Scuba diving is also found in Mombasa. Many supporters of
Soccer were disappointed by the sorry state of the sport in the
country.
Kenya fairs poorly when it comes to technology in the tourism
sector. The Tourism Board of Kenya has tried to improve
creativity in the sector but still is not up to the standards that
the tourists had anticipated. Some of the technology that the
foreign tourists suggested includes: collaborative filtering,

12. personalization software/profiling, knowledge-based software
and online word of mouth (WOM). The climate and topography
of Mombasa is amazing. The climate is wet and dry. The
geography of Mombasa is not hilly and has features to admire
like the exfoliation domes. Mombasa has only had few cases of
weather related calamities such as the tsunami.
Mombasa ranks as one of the best tourism sites in terms of
hospitality and culture. Most of the hotels were exquisite with
great services and hospitality. The diversity of culture was also
an attraction factor with the different ethnic groups, different
languages, dances, music, food, attires and more. Most of the
tourist marvel at what Mombasa holds when it comes to
heritage. The town is rich in history from how the town was
conquered by the Sultan of Oman to how the old town
developed. Tourist love to visit sites like Fort Jesus that was
built by the Portuguese in the 14th century, and it still stands up
to date. Apart from the Hotels and Restaurants, the
infrastructure of the country is not well developed, especially
the roads. The roads would cause inconvenience when it came
to maneuvering around the country.
When it comes to a tourist destination, no other factor ranks
better than security and safety. A country with eye catching
sceneries, developed infrastructure, rich heritage, well
marketed, etc will not attract any tourists if it is not secure.
Kenya has seen a reduction in the number of tourists since their
disputed election that was carried out in 2007, which left more
than 1,000 people dead and more than 200,000 people internally
displaced. The country has been rocked with insecurity
challenges since then such as the Al-Shabaab extremist group.
Conclusion
In summary, there are various factors that would affect the
decision making process of any tourist wanting to visit any

13. tourist destination site. In reference to the study, the decisions
are affected by security and safety, hospitality and culture,
history and heritage, attraction sites, technology, media and
marketing, sports, economic factors such as taxes and exchange
rates, climate and geography, and infrastructure and services. A
tourist would choose a tourism destination that is rich in
culture, has political stability and has good security. The
tourists will avoid locations with high taxes related to tourism
and poor infrastructural development and services. A tourist
will refer others to a destination where they received great
hospitality, saw great sceneries and, have rich history and
heritage.