1 Measuring Tourism Website Communication out of Central America Leyland Pitt, Colin Campbell, Simon Fraser University Pierre Berthon, Bentley College Deon Nel, Deakin University Karla Loria, Lulea University of Technology Abstract This study analyses website communication out of Central American nations using content analysis. The official government tourism websites of seven countries were analysed and mapped. We found that some countries communicate far more specific messages than others, in a way that allows the personality of the country – often termed its “brand” – to shine through. Others are currently failing to communicate distinctly. This article illustrates an easy and relatively inexpensive way for international tourism marketers to examine their brands as they are communicate online. The contribution of this study is the use of a simple research approach and set of tools that both tourism researchers and managers can use. Introduction New media developments, most notably advances in internet and e-commerce technology, have had an impact on the marketing and management of travel and tourism (Pollack, 1995; Williams and Palmer, 1999; Sigala and Baum, 2003; Poria and Oppewal, 2003; Uysal, 2004; Wynne et al, 2001). Tourism scholars have advocated the analysis and exploitation of website content as a means of understanding and exploiting the marketing potential of the website of tourism brands (e.g. Poria and Gvili, 2006). Pitt et al (2007) describe a detailed website content analysis of the official government tourism websites of a number of African countries, thus shedding light on an under-researched geographical area. Using WordStat software (Peladeau, 2003), illustrate the use of Aaker’s (1997) dimensions of brand personality as a framework to construct perceptual maps of the countries against the brand personality dimensions based on correspondence analysis (Greenacre, 1993). The paper briefly reviews some approaches to the content analysis of tourism and travel websites. Next, we describe a study that content analyzed the official tourism websites of the seven Central American nations, discussing the Leximancer results produced for these sites. We conclude by identifying the limitations of the study, discussing the managerial implications of the findings, and then identifying avenues for future research. National Branding, Websites and Content Analysis Location branding of places, towns, cities, regions and countries is now a common phenomenon (Hankinson, 2004) and has generated much interest in recent years. Spurred by Otabil’s (2004) admonition that countries in Africa should act like companies in terms of branding, Pitt et al (2007) conducted a content analysis of some African nation brands’ websites. Central America consists of seven countries, namely, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Despite its very rich tourism potential, ranging from its prospects as a venue for sustainable tourism to its fascinating cultural history and natural wonders, the region has largely been under-researched by tourism scholars. Belize has been examined from the perspective of a tourism industry coping with changes caused by diversification of the product (Berendse and Roessingh, 2007); had its ecotourism and certification studied from a corporate social responsibility perspective (Medina, 2005); and been looked at as an example of alternative tourism approaches (Boxill, 2003). Nicaragua has been studied from an anthropological perspective with particular reference to its change from socialism to a destination for tourists (Babb, 2003). Panama’s tourism has been examined in terms of the geopolitical and economic impacts of changes in the Panama Canal zone structure (Casado, 2001). Tourism in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala has not been given serious specific attention by tourism scholars. Costa Rica’s tourism has been the subject of substantial attention, with researchers investigating a range of topics including tourism regulation (Ross, Riley, and Rumpca, 2007), pricing (Lindberg and Aylward, 1999) and especially ecotourism (Gray and Campbell, 2007; Cottrell et al, 2004; Stem et al., 2003). It is only in the case of Costa Rica that the online marketing practices of the official government tourism department have been studied (Raventos, 2006). We