Abstract:
Wildlife-based tourism significantly contributes to Kenya's tourism industry, particularly through
attractions like the Big Five: elephant, lion, rhino, buffalo, and leopard. In 2019, the tourism sector
directly contributed 8.8% to Kenya’s GDP, amounting to KES 790 billion (USD 7.9 billion), and
created over 1.1 million jobs, representing 8.3% of the national job market. Despite the extensive
protected areas in the Amboseli-Tsavo Ecosystem, visitor numbers remain suboptimal, limiting its
socio-economic potential. This study explores how destination brand image and stakeholder roles
influence the attractiveness of wildlife parks in this ecosystem. Using an embedded mixed-method
research design, data were collected from 440 park visitors, 54 tourism managers, and 28 tourism
experts through stratified, convenience, and purposive sampling. Reliability was tested using
Cronbach’s Alpha, and data analysis involved descriptive statistics, regression analyses, and
thematic analysis. Findings showed that cognitive, affective, and conative images significantly
influence park attractiveness, explaining 49.9% of the variance. Park visitors rated the parks highly
in terms of beauty, likelihood of revisiting, attractiveness, and overall satisfaction. The study
recommends robust monitoring and evaluation to enhance marketing efforts and suggests further
research on destination competitiveness and stakeholder collaboration.
Key Words: Destination Brand Image Cognitive Image, Affective Image, And Conative Image
Stakeholder Roles, Attractiveness Wildlife Parks
