Exploring Foreign Tourists’ Image of Tanzania: A Factorial Analysis Approach

In the last decade, the economy of African continent and Tanzania
in particular has witnessed a business boom of the tourism sector.
While the sector has continued to grow and become a dependable
source of direct and indirect employment to youths in urban and
rural areas, the sector has been awash with challenges. These
challenges include terrorism attacks, energy crises and poor infrastructure.
However, the impact of these challenges on the image of Tanzania as a tourist destination has not received the deserved attention. This study explores the perception of visitors towards Tanzania as a tourist destination after they have completed their tourist visit. This study employs factor analysis technique to explore country destination image. Questionnaires were administered to
visitors at some of the tourists’ hotels and Julius Kamabarage Nyerere International Airport (as a major exit point) in the country. Front line employees, various tourist sites and access to services emerged to be strong tourist destination image factors. This implies that the efforts of marketing tourism destination should focus on promoting all the sites the country has.