DESTINATION MARKETING AND TOURISM DEVELOPMENT: A CASE OF CROSS RIVER STATE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Nigeria's Cross River State, one of the travel destinations with a wealth of resources, does not seem to have made the most of them to effectively compete with other African and global travel destinations. Thus, the rationale behind this research was to investigate how destination marketing influences tourism development. In light of this, the study's specific goal was to investigate the impact of advertising sales promotion and direct marketing on tourism development. The study, which was conducted in Nigeria's Cross River State, used a survey research approach. Using the Yamane (1967) sample size calculation procedure, a sample size of 65 respondents was calculated from the study population of 77 managers and employees of three tourism centres in the study area who were chosen at random. Nonetheless, 45 respondents' responses were deemed legitimate and utilized. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the replies. The multiple regression model used to test the hypothesis was tested for significance using the F-statistics. It was determined that advertising, sales promotion and direct marketing as destination marketing tools had significant influence on tourism development. It was therefore recommended that tourism marketing staff should be trained on the use of effective destination marketing tools to enhance tourism development. It was also recommended that government should make efforts to effectively address the security challenges in the country, to attract more tourists and enhance their safety.

Keywords: Destination marketing, advertising, sales promotions, direct marketing, tourism development