المستخلص: |
Destinations often compete on nothing more than the image held in the minds of potential travellers. Generally, the tourism image of Egypt has been assessed in many studies as an ancient and heritage Destination, however, a few of which assessed it on websites. The current study attempts at distinguishing the characteristics of the online image of Egypt as a tourist destination displayed in the mega websites; Trip Advisor is selected because it is considered one of the main mega tourism websites all over the world. The investigation of the tourism image of Egypt in the mega websites employs the "Netnography" method as a new qualitative research methodology that is devised specifically to investigate the consumer behaviour of cultures and communities presented on the Internet. Two research techniques are used to collect data. The first one is the content analysis of trip advisor users’ comments during three tourism high seasons represented in years 2010, 2012, and 2015. The second, an online questionnaire targeted the users of the Trip Advisor website. The results of the study illustrate the current characteristics of the image of Egypt as a tourism destination and its progress before and after the revolution of January 25th. Moreover demonstrate if the tourism image of Egypt generally described as a positive or a negative image. Recommendations for strengthening and enhancing the tourism image of Egypt on the mega websites will be thus presented.
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