الملخص الإنجليزي
This study seeks to define the characteristics of the form and content of the official websites of the tourism media in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), compare between them and define the richness and diversity of each. The researcher has used the Media Richness Theory in this study to interpret the results. This study is considered a descriptive and analytical study and applies content analysis method. Specifically, the study concentrates on analysing the official websites of the tourism media in GCC, which are: Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, The National Council of Tourism and Antiquities in United Arab Emirates, Touristic Enterprises Company in Kuwait, Qatar Tourism Authority, Ministry of Tourism Oman and Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities in the time interval between the beginning of March till the end of April 2016.
The study reveals that -in terms of the characteristics of the websites' form- the majority of the websites that are being examined use complex designs, but they neglect the placement of websites updating icon. Moreover, the results indicate that Oman's website is the only website that provides browsing in five different languages, while the other websites merely provide browsing in two languages: Arabic and English. Furthermore, the results imply that most websites are not concerned with providing the category entitled "website services". In terms of the characteristics of the websites 'content the results indicate that the majority of the websites being analysed neglect providing two "information categories": the organisational and managerial information and the analytical information, whereas all websites consider providing info-media.
The results confirm that the Saudi website is the richest website in terms of the form and the content, followed by Oman website. Nevertheless, Kuwait website is considered the least rich in terms of the form and content. The results also indicate that the websites subject to study differ between each other in the level of concern about certain characteristics in terms of form and content. The websites of Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain are more concerned with the form characteristics than the content, while Emirates website is more concerned with the content characteristics than the form. Saudi and Oman websites, though, concentrate on the form and content characteristics equally, therefore, the results prove their elevated level of richness.
