An Exploratory Study of Tourism Bureau Websites in Africa

Tourism in Africa is growing at a faster rate than other regions of the world, and consumers increasingly access tourism bureau websites to gather information about travel destinations. The purpose of this study is to evaluate tourism bureau websites for 20 major cities and 30 countries in Africa on six dimensions: Convenience, Cost, Choice, Customer Service, Customization and Coordination. Significant differences between websites in these regions are found on two of the six dimensions: Choice and Customization, and to a lesser extent, Customer Service. An evaluation of tourism destination websites in African countries and cities can help municipal and national tourism bureaus in these regions determine if their website is comparable to those of the other countries on several dimensions, their strengths and weaknesses relative to the foreign websites, and identify what can be improved to present a more comparable and appealing website for prospective tourists to their city.