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Together with developing information and communication technologies and the increasing use of the Internet, there have been changes in the behaviors of the consumers during the purchasing decision process. Today’s consumers realize most of the decision process phases (such as gathering the information, determining the alternatives, evaluating the alternatives and even purchasing) from the Internet. Tourists who would like to purchase a holiday are also using the Internet during their holiday decision process. Today, websites which became an increasingly popular information source for the consumers play a significant role in potential visitors/tourists’ choices related to the destinations. Websites are used as a distribution and marketing tool in promotion and marketing of the tourism destinations. In this context, the design and content of the destination websites should be on a level which would attract and satisfy the tourists. In this chapter, the author will primarily discourse the visual and auditory factors which affect the perception of tourists and the application areas of these factors in website design. Then, the subjects such as the key features of the websites, information that should be provided on websites, the design of the website and their functions will be covered. The parameters that should be taken under consideration in order to evaluate the performance of a website and the evaluation criteria for the sites will also be included within the context of this chapter. In this chapter, the author will also discourse the benefits that the websites provide for destinations and the success factors of the destination websites. In the conclusion section of this chapter, the author will provide propositions related to the factors that should be taken under consideration in destination website design.

This research aims to investigate how emerging destinations cope with digitalization of information, where they are in the process and how digitalization of information takes place in destination marketing organizations (DMOs). As a case for emerging destinations that must deal with the negative consequences of the digital divide, the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) will be examined. A new framework, solutions in general, and potential innovative approaches will be presented.

A mixed methods approach was used. Firstly, a content analysis comprising 68 criteria to examine 10 destination websites was conducted to evaluate the performance of provincial destination websites of VMD. Secondly, the authors interviewed five managers from VMD DMOs to reveal the strategy, status quo and their challenges with digitalization.

Some digitalization is evident in VMD DMOs, with the digitization of tourist information provision developing from analog formats to digital modes. The content analysis of the websites shows that provincial destination websites of VMD perform well with regard to communication but need improvements for transaction, and especially relationship aspects. Emerging destinations like VMD DMOs are reaching the second or third level in the digitalization process. Yet they face challenges with human and financial resources.

This research provides recommendations concerning destination website performance, the process of digitalization and how to promote digitalization and apply more digital instruments to move to the next stages of destination digitalization. Also, suggestions on how to overcome existing challenges/barriers in similar areas of the world are provided.

A new, extended more granulated version of the digitalization framework by Karpova et al. (2019) has been developed. The new model acknowledges the continued importance of printed information, provides information about the sequence of steps how to implement website dimensions, and which instruments are realistic to implement in different levels of digitalization considering the challenges and barriers developing destinations face.

The purpose of the present paper was to explore the best practices of destination management in promoting tourist destinations through the Mozambique government website (INATUR) and identify strategies that enhance its visibility and online presence. This was only possible by (1) exploring if people are aware of the government website’s existence; (2) examining the existence of indicators of the engagement behaviors for the web-users (visitors) in their searching process on the government website; (3) exploring if the engagement behavior and website features have influence on the government website visitors’ satisfaction and (4) providing measures to enhance the popularity of the government website at INATUR.

The study combined a qualitative and quantitative methodological approach from the primary data collected via an online questionnaire survey of 269 random respondents, and the selected data was analyzed and processed using Stata 13 with the descriptive statistic and ANOVA [Analysis of Variance (an econometric model)] technique. The data was collected from secondary sources and from the interview, a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis was applied with an interpretive approach.

The government website presents the minimum of relevant information to respond to the users’ needs and expectations. There is little knowledge regarding the existence of the government website for tourism destination marketing. Few respondents were surprised about this website’s existence. The optimistic side of responses came from those peple who used the website and it helped their expectation. The correlation analysis showed a significant positive relationship between the government website features and the visitors’ searching satisfaction; the interview outputs noted that the shortage of staff at INATUR with knowledge of digital marketing engagement plays a role in solving the problem of the visibility and online presence of the website.

One of the apparent limitations of this research was the world pandemic situation (Covid-19), which influenced to make abrupt arrangements in conducting the questionnaire survey and interview compared to the planned schedule. The interview was supposed to be a field research to have direct contact with her respondents and collect nonverbal information through the respondents’ body language, but unfortunately, it was not possible. Improvising was one of the solutions and had to design an online questionnaire survey for national and international tourist respondents and an emailed interview with INATUR director. Because of that, the results showed a very significant gap between African nationals and international respondents in number of 264 and 5, respectively (about in 98,14%) caused by the lockdown and traveling limitation.

The adoption of the contents in “Recommendations for policy and decision-making” can help in synergizing an integrative marketing communication strategy that enables all actors to maximize local economic benefits without spending many financial resources, and support sustainability, different tourist destination suppliers, authorities and local communities’ development. Ensuring effective and efficient communication, and above all, enhancing the provision of reliable information. Reinforce the importance of the practical teaching and learning of digital platforms in tourism schools and universities; offer a thematic tool to serve as an analytical basis in future studies, encouraging continuous scientific research on the subject under study.

Raising the awareness of the government website among tourist consumers; promoting Mozambique as a reference destination and its tourist diversity through the use of the government website; capitalizing tourists’ enterprises for communities’ development; improving the competitiveness of destinations through greater exposure of tourism products and services on the government website boosts the economic gains for the development of the tourism sector in the country. Accessibility to the information channel of Mozambican tourist destinations via the government website, and stimulating the desire to visit; improve and enrich the visitor’s experience quality on the government website in the tourist information consultation.

It is the first research in the country about tourism destination marketing using indicators like customers’ behavioral engagement levels based on social interactions such as likes, shares and comments on the government website, as well as its awareness and performance aspects, to analyze if the INATUR government website is being successful on its tourism destination marketer role. The research was also done to bring solutions to the current trends of the Covid-19 pandemic that has affected and disrupted the tourism industry.

Given the increased importance of food in tourists’ travel experience, the purpose of this paper is to explore the current and future potential of local food and foodways in marketing Egyptian destinations online.

The content of 20 Egyptian destination marketing organization (DMO) websites was subject to a content analysis. A checklist was developed based on literature analysis. The frequencies of information related to food culture and cuisine marketing were tallied, followed by a qualitative assessment of contents from the various websites. The results were further discussed with DMO representatives to provide contextualized insights as to the future potential of utilizing local food and food tourism initiatives as a component of DMOs website marketing in Egypt.

The study noted some initial efforts for Egyptian DMO websites to market food culture and gastronomic practices; however, the results suggest that the usage of food culture on Egyptian DMOs websites is still in its infancy. The study also highlights the challenges that need to be tackled as well as the resources required for food tourism development.

This study illustrates the need and potential capacity of Egyptian DMO websites to market food culture and local cuisines (including traditional foods and table manners). These results are expected to help Egyptian DMOs to strategically embrace local cuisine and food culture as a vehicle for destination marketing.

This case study provides insights for African and other developing economies in their destination marketing. The proposed framework and guidelines are intended to potentially serve as a framework for destination marketers and entrepreneurs to optimize the tourism potential of food culture.

An official destination website (ODW) is a key component for tourist’s decision-making processes. ODW acts as a direct channel where users may share experiences and opinions about previous or future travels. At the same time, it drives user participation in destination branding activities. In this context, it is crucial to identify how the destination website, using Web 2.0 technologies, could motivate user’s participation with the brand. The purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate a model that posits the destination website quality as a determinant factor to predict users’ attitudes toward the website and their willingness to participate in co-creation experiences.

Using a combined qualitative and quantitative method, this paper provides an exploratory research that examines the role of destination website quality on attitudes toward the website and the willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences.

Findings confirm that there is a direct and significant relationship between website quality, attitudes toward the website and willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences. Moreover, attitudes toward the website partially mediate relationships between destination website quality and willingness to participate in online co-creation experiences.

The literature of value co-creation is trying to identify which factors drive consumer’s participation with brands across different consumption contexts. This study provides evidence that confirms, from a tourism destination website point of view, that website quality is one of these key factors that motives user’s co-creation with a destination.

The purpose of this article is to propose and test empirically tourism ' s destination dominance and marketing website usefulness hypothesis (TDDH). The study proposes a multi-item metric for marketing website usefulness. The main hypothesis is that the usefulness of a destination ' s marketing website associates positively with the dominance of tourism in the destination.

The following ratio defines tourism ' s destination dominance: the number of tourists visiting annually to a destination ' s residential population. The method includes creating a multi-item metric for judging the usefulness of a destination ' s marketing website. The study applies the metric in evaluating the usefulness of 40 destination marketing websites.

The study ' s findings indicate a significant relationship between tourism destination dominance and marketing website usefulness. The effect size of this relationship is small. The small effect size indicates that some destinations with relatively few tourists (relative to the destination ' s residential population) do include substantial amounts of information in their websites and some destinations with relatively many tourists do not do so.

The usefulness of a destination ' s website for potential visitors does not relate substantially to tourism ' s dominance in the destination. Some destinations with relatively few tourists are highly competent in designing websites that are highly useful for potential visitors.

Providing a discussion of alternative tourism destination dominance metrics, confirming the view that destination marketing websites vary in their usefulness for potential visitors and offering a metric for testing usefulness are the valuable contributions of the study.

Numerous travel websites have become popular in the past decade. Some destination websites allow travelers to book flights, hotels, restaurant visits, and tours. They also provide a great way for other tourists to leave feedback on the visits they had to specific travel destinations and provide other customers with reliable accounts. In this case, the theory proposes that unique offerings on a website have a greater affect on getting website visitors who are potential tourists to actually visit the website's destination. The findings show that interactive tourism websites that keep up with current technology will translate into attracting the most visitors to that specific city location. This study is unique and valuable as the analysis of the three tourism websites indicates the uniqueness of each of the three specific cities located on the Mediterranean Sea: Valencia, Marseille, and Genoa. This study provides a detailed analysis of each of the three cities’ travel websites and ranks each of the websites to evaluate which is the most reliable and most appealing to today's busy travelers. Valencia's tourism website earns “Best” of the three tourism destination websites. Marseille and Genoa's website do not offer the same caliber of information and lack the detail of Valencia's website. Valencia's website is easy to use, has the most up-to-date technology sources, and is physically the most appealing.

Smart tourism is a destination management approach that requires the buy-in of a myriad of stakeholders. Its many audiences and complexity demand the creation of meaningful brands to effectively position and communicate smart tourism initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how smart tourism branding strategies have been implemented to communicate relevant values, benefits and attributes to industry stakeholders through institutional websites.

Based on a semiotic analysis of two smart tourism-related sites (destinosinteligentes.es and smarttourismcapital.eu), the research interprets the brand-related visual and verbal signs.

The findings highlight how brand elements embedded in websites communicate a brand identity and facilitate particular interpretations of smart tourism. Both brands use similar signs to promote a techtopian vision of smart destinations but employ different strategies to motivate stakeholder buy-in.

Smart tourism is currently largely embedded in overall smart city initiatives and finding tourism-specific examples online is difficult. However, the two selected websites reflect the brands of multiple destinations and permit a detailed analysis of meaning making. Future research can focus on how brand-related signs are perceived by different stakeholders.

Identifying the strategies and shortcomings of current smart tourism brands informs future smart tourism branding efforts and effective communication with smart tourism stakeholders.

Semiotics is a relevant but underutilized method to understand how smart tourism initiatives conceptualize “smartness.”

Culture is an important motivation force to people within the context of tourism. It provides new opportunities for destinations to promote cultural elements and attract more travellers. This study aims to investigate how the cultural heritage of Cyprus is promoted online and to identify whether the needs of travellers who focus on experiential aspects and prioritise culture can be fulfilled.

The research aim is fulfilled through a critical discourse analysis of selected WebPages concerning representation of the culture of Cyprus within the tourism context.

Eighteen websites were included, and the results suggest that Cyprus has Web exposure specifically promoting its cultural heritage. However, the websites have been established with different tourism scopes, with culture comprising just one part of the content. Thus, the development of specialised websites is dedicated exclusively to culture and tourism, and it seems appropriate to attract travellers interested in more educational activities with cultural and historical value. This approach would bring many benefits because this cohort of travellers is in an upper-scale tourist market.

This study is original in nature because it brings together the case of Cyprus, an island destination highly depended on tourism in relation to cultural tourism Web discourse. The promotion of cultural parameters will provide more opportunities for the island and escape from the 3S’s (sea, sun and sand) image to be positioned as a culturally sustainable destination.

Reviews of scientific publications in the area of tourism continuously find commonalities and repeatedly applied criteria in conceptualizing destination image. Much emphasis has been placed on investigating the image components (dimensions) and potential impacts as perceived by the consumer. Publications on the image formation and change, however, do not disclose many details on the process and impacts of change agents. Hence, this study aims to look into the initial stages of destination image planning and how these plans are implemented through projecting onto the official destination websites.

The text-based content analysis builds on a random sample of one-third of the tourism development plans and the respective official tourism websites of sub-provincial prefectures in China. Terms (originally phrased in Chinese language only) were extracted that could be classified as image components considering the context where they appeared.

Results exhibit a sparse application of varied and imaginative image elements in both the tourism development plans and the official websites. Deviations between intended and projected destinations are substantial. An overwhelming majority of prefectural destination management organizations (DMOs) appears to be distant from a professional implementation of an image positioning strategy.

Due to resource limitations, only a random sample of one-third of the 365 sub-provincial prefectures in China could have been screened. To draw a complete, though structurally most probably not very different, picture on the scope and variety of image elements, a complete investigation would be necessary. The projection of image items on the official websites represents a restricted view on possible image formation agents. For a more comprehensive understanding, other information channels (e.g. printed advertising material, travel catalogues and guide books) would complement the perspective on induced image agents.

From a managerial perspective, it appears to be an easy job to position a destination along one or two main appeal characteristics, particularly when the majority of these are factual aspects of geography, landscape, history or culture. Whether such a positioning strategy materializes in view of an increasing competition among destinations is questionable. The condensed image profiles identified in this study can act as blueprints for developing more pronounced positioning profiles. The variation across groups of destination image profiles and the composition of prefectures for each group reflects the potential competitive pressure that prefectures may excel unless the DMO representatives decide to go for an adapted target position.

This study is a rare attempt to analyse the intended/planned and projected image elements of a multitude of tourism destinations simultaneously. Such a comparison is usually done on a case-by-case basis only. Thus, the insights of this study go beyond the limits of an individual destination enabling structural comparisons across neighbouring and nation-wide regions.