| Abstract: |
This paper explores whether websites that offer a global audience virtual
access to watering holes in game parks afford African nations opportunities to
diminish their international isolation as tourism destinations. The present
analysis examines a sample of almost 450 tourism websites representing Rwanda,
Uganda and Mozambique. Two aspects are studied in particular: the websites’
technical and social infrastructures, including website ownership and
networks, and website content, i.e. the projected destination image and
opportunities to bridge the main supplier-consumer gaps in the global tourism
value chain. The findings indicate that there is substantial foreign
involvement in Africa’s online tourism infrastructure; furthermore, that the
current projected images tend to reproduce foreign stereotypes. It concludes
that the potential for upgrading branding capabilities could be sourced in
indigenous African cultural attributes, both high and low culture, and in
contexts of the past and the contemporary. |