Tourism destinations can be considered as complex systems of interrelated and interdependent stakeholders. The complexity and limited power of influencing the number of stakeholders resulted in network approach to tourism destination governance. This approach is considered both theoretically and practically as a tool for strengthening its sustainable competitiveness, fostering innovation and knowledge sharing. Although the network analysis of tourism destinations has gained a significant attention in recent years, the complex understanding of its contribution to smart development is still missing. The aim of this chapter is to create a framework for smart approach in destination governance using the network science perspective. The chapter provides insights in using network analysis for strengthening the tourism destination governance. The chapter uses a case study methodology on two mature tourism destinations, providing an example of the use of network analysis for destination governance strengthening.
TopIntroduction
Tourism destinations are complex adaptive systems of interrelated and independent stakeholders (Baggio, 2008; Pearce, 2014) where tourism demand meets the supply. Due to the changing conditions on the tourism market, the need for flexibility and dynamics in co-ordination of the tourism destination and lack of authority in management of destinations, destination management organizations have difficulties in performance of the tasks of the destination management (Pechlaner, Beritelli, Pichler, Peters, & Scott, 2015). These difficulties had impact on the view of destinations and the concept of the governance applied to tourism started to be discussed. As Beritelli, Bieger and Laesser (2007) stress, the concept of destination governance consists of setting and developing the rules and mechanism for a policy, as well as business strategies, by involving all the institutions and individuals. Moreover, the complexity and limited power of influencing the number of stakeholders resulted in network approach to tourism destination governance (Valeri & Baggio, 2020b; 2021; van der Zee, Gerrets, & Vanneste, 2017). This approach is considered as a tool for strengthening the sustainable competitiveness of destinations (Van der Zee & Vanneste, 2015), fostering innovation (Gajdošík, Gajdošíková, Maráková, & Borseková, 2017) and knowledge sharing (Raisi, Baggio, Barratt-Pugh, & Willson, 2020).
The dynamic environment, in which DMOs now operate (Reinhold, Beritelli, & Grünig, 2019), pushes forward a new model of governance. Tourism literature stresses the crucial role of knowledge management and information and communication technologies (ICTs) in destination governance (Micera, Presenza, Splendiani, & Del Chiappa, 2013; Valeri and Baggio, 2020c). ICTs are seen as a source of knowledge generation and dissemination which can help DMOs to manage and reinforce their network value (Fortezza & Pencarelli, 2018; Fuchs, Höpken, & Lexhagen, 2014). Therefore applying the developments arising from the application of smart tourism concept (Sheehan, Vargas-Sánchez, Presenza, & Abbate, 2016) is welcomed. This concept creates opportunities for better data collection and analysis. Although, the smart ecosystem has been considered in a few studies dealing with network science in tourism destinations (see e.g. Baggio and Del Chiappa 2014; Raisi et al. 2018; Williams et al. 2017), the profound understanding of the potential of the smart initiative within this domain is still missing.