Website Translation and Destination Image Marketing

Abstract

This study compares the image representations of Reunion Island on the Internet when using original websites in French and their English version. It analyzes the text content of web pages obtained from a list of web information sources providing both French and English versions. Textual data analysis and correspondence analysis based on the most frequent keywords is conducted using the software package Alceste. Results show that the image of Reunion Island is very different between language versions. These differences can be explained by the poor quality of the language translation even though the websites studied were retrieved from the top list of tourism websites providing information on Reunion Island as a destination. This study has strategic implications, as it demonstrates a failure to implement effective and consistent destination marketing by tourism organizations that will confuse the consumer. We make recommendations for future research and practice in terms of improved strategic, tactical, and operational integration.