The Influence of Generic Strategies on Performance of Tanzania’s Tourism Firms in Northern Circuit

Tanzania’s northern circuit (Arusha and Kilimanjaro) has continued to be characterized by limited growth of firms’ in the tourism industry despite the initiatives made by government in stimulating both performance and growth of the industry. This paper was set out to investigate the influence of generic strategies (low-cost leadership, focus and differentiation) on performance of tourism firms in Tanzania’s northern circuit. Cross-sectional survey design was used in 40 tourism firms targeting a sample size of 120 respondents. However, only 100 participants making 83.3% of the valid questionnaires. The study employed explanatory sequential mixed method strategy, where questionnaires and interview guide were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Quantitative data were analysed both descriptively and inferentially using SPSS while qualitative data were analysed thematically using content analysis. The study revealed that, the generic strategies positively influence by 62.8% the performance of tourism firms in the Tanzanian northern circuit while 37.2% is contributed by other factors which were not studied. The study concludes that, generic strategies influence performance of tourism firms; and further recommends that, tourism firms are required to implement generic strategies in order to improve their performance and search other factors which can influence the performance of tourism firms.

JEL classification: C12, C18, M10, M19