A Comparative Analysis of East African Destination Marketing Websites

Abstract

Use of website as a source of travel information by potential touristshas become ubiquitous such that its has compelled many tourismorganizations to have websites. Tourism researchers have beenquestioning the value and effectiveness of tourism websites throughempirical studies. Among the plethora of such studies, Africanparticularly East African context seem to be ignored. This studyfocused on evaluating tourism promotion agencies ' websites in EastAfrica particularly Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.Mixed methods combining both qualitative and quantitativeresearch approaches were used in evaluating content and design offour tourism agencies in the respective countries. Quantitative datawere analyzed using one sample t-tests. All countries promote basedon their natural attractions with Uganda capitalizing much more onnatural attractions than others. Findings indicated average scores forthe websites, albeit, variations within the elements of websites.Relatively, Kenyan website outshines those for other East Africancountries. From ANOVA tests, results indicated the four countries to  be in different baskets for some website design elements with Kenyaand Uganda being in the upper echelons in text as well as picture,respectively. The study sets benchmarks for respective destinationmarketing organizations in East Africa to elevate their websites. Interms of methodology, the study provides a valid methodologicalapproach that can be used in other contexts apart from tourism.Keywords: website evaluation, East Africa, tourism,comparative analysis