An evaluation of e-tourism marketing strategies of SMTES in Tanzania”

The extent to which SMTEs are making use of e-tourism marketing strategies in their businesses is questionable. The main objective of this study was to evaluate e-tourism marketing strategies of SMTEs in Tanzania and the extent to which these strategies lead to customer satisfaction and the inflow of tourists into the country. A descriptive cross-sectional study was used with both systematic and simple random sampling techniques being employed in which Managers of sixty SMTEs from Dar es Salaam and Arusha cities as well as Sixty Tourists from exit points of the Country were interviewed using structured questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using a Software Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) and hypotheses were tested using Chi square and Kolmogorov Smirnov tests. The findings show that not all SMTEs have websites although the majority sees it as very important to have websites. The majority of SMTEs attach great importance to advertising via online media. About half of the tourists sampled view tourism products advertised on-line as being attractive. It is therefore recommended that both the policy makers and the entrepreneurs should work together to raise awareness of e-tourism through training and education for stakeholders, employees and consumers. E-tourism cannot be implemented without empowering and enabling tourism stakeholders to take advantage of the new Internet and e-tourism technologies.