A comparative analysis of destination marketing websites focus on East African Tourism websites

The use of website as a source of travel information by potential tourists has become ubiquitous, compelling many tourism organizations to have websites. Tourism researchers have been questioning the value and effectiveness of tourism websites through empirical studies. Among the plethora of such studies, African particularly East African context seem to be ignored. This study focused on evaluating tourism promotion agencies’ websites in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Multi-methods combining both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in evaluating the content and design of four tourism agencies in the respective countries. Data were analyzed using chi-square, one sample t-tests and ANOVA. Results from the study indicate that, all the countries promote their destinations basing on natural attractions with Uganda capitalizing much more on natural attractions compared to others. These results indicate average scores for the websites albeit variations within the elements of websites. Relatively Kenyan website outshines those for other East African countries. From ANOVA tests the results indicate the four countries to be in different baskets for some website design elements with Kenya and Uganda being in the upper echelons in text and picture respectively. The study sets the benchmarks for the respective destination marketing organizations in East Africa to elevate their websites. Methodological wise, the study provides a valid methodological approach that can be used in other context apart from tourism.