State-Led Destination Branding and Post-Pandemic Recovery: Evidence from Tanzania's 2022 Royal Tour Campaign

Abstract

This paper assesses the Royal Tour campaign of 2022 in Tanzania as a destination branding intervention by a state in the context of tourism recovery after the pandemic. The research is based on the concept of destination image theory, which was developed by Crouch and Ritchie and furthered by Pike and Page. The theory of tourism-led growth, presented by Balaguer and Cantavella-Jorda and expanded by Seetanah, and also the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), which discusses the effect of persuasive communication on attitude change via central and peripheral processing pathways, was developed by Petty and Cacioppo. These frameworks will inform the discussion of the branding message effects on destination perception, travel decision-making, and tourism performance. The study blends survey studies on 40 international visitors, interviews with 17 tourism stakeholders, and national tourism statistics in a mixed-method design to determine the role of the campaign in destination image-building, visitor demand, and economic impacts. Findings show that 67.5% of the surveyed visitors were familiar with the documentary and 55% of them said that the documentary had a bearing or strengthened their travel decision. The national data indicate that international arrivals have increased by 58 percent in 2021-2022 and further by 24.3 percent in 2023, with the tourism revenue also increasing to US$3.4 billion. These results put the leadership-based destination branding as a catalytic tool that acts as a part of a larger tourism ecosystem and adds to the theoretical synthesis of persuasion process, destination image development, and tourism-based growth in new tourism settings.