Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Vol. 40, No. 5, August 2016, 611–633 DOI: 10.1177/1096348013515917 © 2013 The Author(s) 611 WEBSITE TRANSLATION AND DESTINATION IMAGE MARKETING: A CASE STUDY OF REUNION ISLAND Jean-Pierre Tang-Taye IAE University of Reunion Craig Standing Centre for Innovative Practice, Edith Cowan University 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. KEYWORDS: Alceste; correspondence analysis; destination image; Reunion Island; website translation; marketing island destinations; third world tourism marketing The tourism industry uses information and communication technology inten- sively to communicate with prospective customers through various channels. A key part of this is the information search process as it is critical in the decision behavior of tourists (Pan & Fesenmaier, 2006). The role of the Internet and web- sites in the tourism industry and their contribution is recognized in the research literature, including their role in destination image presentation (Choi, Lehto, & Morrison, 2007), destination culture (Horng & Tsai, 2010), website evaluation in tourism (Law, Qi, & Buhalis, 2010) or website performance (Plaza, 2011). It is widely accepted that the Internet has affected the entire tourism value chain in an irreversible way, and hence, online marketing has become a critical strategic issue (Dwyer, Edwards, Mistilis, Roman, & Scott, 2009). This is especially true 515917JHT XX X 10.1177/1096348013515917Journal of Hospitality & Tourism ResearchTang-Taye, Standing / Web Site Translation research-article 2013 at Edith Cowan University on October 20, 2016 jht.sagepub.com Downloaded from