توسعه مقاصد گردشگری : چشم انداز چند وجهی یکپارچه

Research on destination development is fragmented. Some studies focus primarily on one or a few selected areas of destination development, paying limited attention to multilevel issues and theoretical integration, while others take a more holistic, phenomena-driven view, making theoretical delimitation difficult. We lack theoretical approaches to guide us in the question of how destinations can be developed from an integrated multilevel perspective. We mitigate this challenge by developing a theoretical framework highlighting three specific areas impacting destination development. These are: destination capabilities, coordination at the destination level, and inter-destination bridge ties. The three areas will each have a direct impact on destination development, and furthermore, the areas are interrelated and thereby impact destination development indirectly.

Tourism destinations can be considered as complex networks that involve a large number of co-producing actors delivering a variety of products, and services (Gunn, 1994, Pearce, 1989, Hu and Brent Ritchie, 1993, Ramirez, 1999, Buhalis, 2000, Murphy et al., 2000 and Silkoset, 2004). While tourists perceive the destination as a unit, offering an integrated experience or a destination product (Buhalis, 2000 and Murphy et al., 2000), this experience or product is still produced and composed by the individual actors. The success of individual actors, as well as the success of the entire destination, is dependent on efficient coordination and integration of individual companies’ resources, products, and services (Beritelli et al., 2007 and Rodríguez-Díaz and Espino-Rpdríguez, 2008). The importance of treating the destination as a unit has resulted in a large body of research focusing on different issues related to destination development. It is acknowledged that the destination is an important unit affecting the competitiveness of both the destination and individual actors. Existing research has paid attention to a large number of issues such as, for example, strategic destination planning (Formica & Kothari, 2008), dynamic destination management (Sainaghi, 2006), destination competitiveness (Mazanec, Wöber, & Zins, 2007), collaboration in tourism policymaking (de Araujo and Bramwell, 2002 and Bramwell and Sharman, 1999), collaboration and community-based tourism planning (Jamal & Getz, 1995), collaborative destination marketing (Wang & Xiang, 2007), destination marketing organizations (DMOs) (Gretzel, Fesenmaier, Formica, & O’Leary, 2006), and destination governance (Beritelli et al., 2007). This research has produced both management-oriented models and in-depth theoretical understandings of destination development. However, this past research has also left some gaps. First, previous research has not fully taken into account the challenges of developing strategies across multiple actor boundaries. Destinations are complex co-producing networks, and destination development needs to take into account the challenges of developing strategies involving a large number of firms and other actors such as, for example, local and regional authorities. We use the term integrated to signal the need for strategies spanning individual actor boundaries. Second, destination development is a multilevel phenomenon as it requires attention to issues at the level of the individual actor, the level of the destination (inter-firm or inter-actor), and the level of a larger geographic or regional area (inter-destination). This article seeks to fill this void in the literature by simultaneously addressing these two issues. We take the view that destination development needs to encompass strategies across multiple actor boundaries and across multiple actor levels, and we refer to these as integrated multilevel strategies. The purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical framework for destination development emphasizing the requirements for integration and multilevel considerations. The framework aims at capturing this complexity by incorporating three major parts: (1) destination capabilities, (2) coordination at the destination level, and (3) inter-destination bridge ties. First, the utilization of distributed resources to achieve a common goal is crucial for any tourism destination. Therefore, destinations need to develop capabilities enabling continuous configuration and reconfiguration of dispersed resources into destination-level products and services. Second, individual actors at the destinations need to act in a coherent manner. This requires the implementation of coordination or integration mechanisms among the actors. We take the view that the underlying interorganizational structure at the destination impacts both the possibilities of establishing such mechanisms and how efficient they are. The third part of the model focuses on ties between geographically separated destinations. We refer to these ties as inter-destination bridge ties. Bridge ties function as information channels between different destinations, and such ties may contribute to increased imitation and innovation by exchange of information and knowledge across destinations. The article contributes to the research literature by emphasizing two important characteristics of tourism destinations that have major implications for our theoretical understanding of destination development. The two characteristics we focus on, integration and multiple levels, direct attention to some important theoretical areas that may provide valuable knowledge for destination development. By developing a theory-driven framework taking into account context-specific characteristics, we seek to apply and combine different theoretical perspectives that together provide a relevant and comprehensive understanding of destination development. Furthermore, the perspective we develop is more delimited and focused, as opposed to more holistic models of destination development (Dwyer and Kim, 2003, Brent Ritchie and Crouch, 2003 and Mazanec et al., 2007). We do not address the specific roles of DMOs and local and regional authorities, as we aim to develop a framework that is theory-driven and can be applied to destinations irrespective of how the roles of these institutions are organized. We certainly acknowledge the importance of these institutions, but we will not explicitly address the division of roles and responsibilities between private companies, DMOs, and public authorities.

Destination development has received increased attention in recent years both in tourism research and management. Our theoretical framework emphasizes three areas that are of importance for destination development. Our point of departure has been that destination development is an integrative, multilevel phenomenon as it addresses the development of strategies spanning individual actor boundaries. Such a view requires attention to actor-level considerations, inter-actor or intra-destination considerations, and inter-destination considerations. This integrative multilevel perspective can contribute to developing a sound theoretical foundation for strategic development of tourism destinations. It provides a deeper understanding of the complexity of issues impacting destinations’ ability to develop strategies that generate value for individual actors and the destination itself as a co-producing network. Tourism destinations represent networks of actors and share many similarities with industrial clusters. It is accepted, both in the tourism literature and the strategic management literature, that destinations or clusters have a decisive impact on the competitiveness and performance of individual actors. Researchers have tried to describe and understand why and how these complex relationships between actors contribute to value creation, competitiveness, and economic growth. However, research has paid less attention to the question of whether it is possible to develop and implement strategies for such networks. We argue that such network strategies need to span individual actor boundaries and cross different levels of analysis. The requirements for integration and multilevel considerations direct attention to important theoretical dimensions that can be valuable and provide a focused and comprehensive understanding of what it takes to develop such strategies. We have thus developed a theoretical framework based on context-specific requirements. Previous research on destination development has paid extensive attention to the roles of organizational bodies such as local tourism organizations, regional tourism boards, destination management organizations (DMOs), and tourism project managers (Björk and Virtanen, 2005 and Dredge, 2006; Franch, Martini, & Tommasini, 2003), and how these units often operate in close collaboration with local and regional public authorities (Go and Govers, 2000, de Araujo and Bramwell, 2002, Dredge, 2006 and Nordin and Svensson, 2007). In this article we have not addressed the roles of these organizational bodies or the roles of local and regional public authorities. The reason for not including such institutions is not because we do not believe they play important roles, but rather that our aim is to develop a theory-driven framework that can be applied to destinations irrespective of institutional differences. Our framework highlights some important areas impacting destination development, and we have not considered how specific tasks and roles should be divided between firms, DMOs, and public authorities. We acknowledge that this can be a shortcoming of our framework, but on the other hand, including the tasks and roles of firms, DMOs, and public authorities would extend and complicate the framework and make it less applicable as a theoretical tool.