EXAMINATION OF THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON PERFORMANCE OF BAR & RESTAURANTS DURING THE CRISIS IN NAIROBI COUNTY, KENYA

The recent Covid-19 crisis has wreaked havoc in the performance of businesses in the whole world. The most hit is the hospitality industry, especially the bar & restaurant businesses, which are considered high human density areas. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to examine the survival strategies influencing the performance of bar & restaurant businesses in Nairobi County, Kenya, in the face of a crisis like the covid-19 pandemic. The outcome of this study was useful in countering the negative effects of future crises in Nairobi County as well as the rest of the nation. The study was based on diffusion of innovation theory and business resilience theory. The specific objectives of the study were to investigate the extent of strategic management adoption, assess the extent of technology/innovation adoption, ascertain the influence of diversification, and examine the influence of social media networking on the performance of bar & restaurant businesses in the face of crisis. The population under study was a total of 6,383 licensed bar & restaurant businesses in Nairobi County. The project adopted a survey research design and simple random sampling technique to select a sample that was representative of the whole population. The study targeted 100 respondents from a sample of 100 bar & restaurants within Nairobi County. The survey used both questionnaires and observation as the main methods of data collection. The researcher then analyzed the data using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression models and used textual explanation, and charts to present the results appropriately. The study also sought to examine the influence of social media on the performance of bar & restaurant businesses during the crisis in Nairobi County. It noted that the p-value of the social media adoption stood at 0.131 indicating that the social media adoption did not have a statistically significant influence on the performance of bar & restaurant businesses. The study thus found that social media adoption as a variable did not have a statistically significant influence on the performance of bar & businesses.  Article visualizations: