Search results

This chapter evaluates the extent to which sustainable principles have been included on the destination recovery plans implemented by British Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) in response to COVID-19 and their subsequent quarantines during the period 2020–2021. The aim of the chapter is to explore if this pause in activities created by the COVID-19 crisis was used by UK DMOs as an opportunity to develop sustainable destination management plans, or alternatively, led them to prioritise financial income as the key driver in their recovery. The chapter also identifies the goals, motivations, performance indicators and strategies applied by those DMOs which developed post-COVID tourism destination recovery plans, with particular focus on those which have decided to include sustainability elements in their plans. The chapter concludes by developing a set of principles that other DMOs could apply when intending to develop sustainable management plans for their destinations in response to future major operational disruptions.

This research aims to investigate how emerging destinations cope with digitalization of information, where they are in the process and how digitalization of information takes place in destination marketing organizations (DMOs). As a case for emerging destinations that must deal with the negative consequences of the digital divide, the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) will be examined. A new framework, solutions in general, and potential innovative approaches will be presented.

A mixed methods approach was used. Firstly, a content analysis comprising 68 criteria to examine 10 destination websites was conducted to evaluate the performance of provincial destination websites of VMD. Secondly, the authors interviewed five managers from VMD DMOs to reveal the strategy, status quo and their challenges with digitalization.

Some digitalization is evident in VMD DMOs, with the digitization of tourist information provision developing from analog formats to digital modes. The content analysis of the websites shows that provincial destination websites of VMD perform well with regard to communication but need improvements for transaction, and especially relationship aspects. Emerging destinations like VMD DMOs are reaching the second or third level in the digitalization process. Yet they face challenges with human and financial resources.

This research provides recommendations concerning destination website performance, the process of digitalization and how to promote digitalization and apply more digital instruments to move to the next stages of destination digitalization. Also, suggestions on how to overcome existing challenges/barriers in similar areas of the world are provided.

A new, extended more granulated version of the digitalization framework by Karpova et al. (2019) has been developed. The new model acknowledges the continued importance of printed information, provides information about the sequence of steps how to implement website dimensions, and which instruments are realistic to implement in different levels of digitalization considering the challenges and barriers developing destinations face.

Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) use Twitter to promote attractions and special events and to build brand awareness. Tweets of a DMO spread through a complex network of connected accounts. Some of these are more influential than others due to their position within the network. This paper aims to use a network analysis of 14 DMOs to identify the categories of influencers that have the greatest reach.

NodeXL was used to download and analyze network data from Twitter during July 2016 for a collection of DMOs promoting US cities. Accounts in the networks were ranked using several measures of relative influence such as the number of times the accounts mentioned/retweeted others or were mentioned in posts about the DMO. The most influential accounts in the network were identified and coded by category.

Media, promotional accounts and those of individuals were determined to be influential by each metric considered. Stakeholders such as hotels and restaurants occupy positions of low importance in the networks and generally do not capitalize on opportunities provided by the DMOs.

DMOs can seek out strategic partnerships with key influencers to maximize their effectiveness. Additionally, stakeholders can improve their Twitter presence by interacting with the DMOs and other influential accounts.

This paper identifies influencers that can aid in DMOs’ marketing campaigns. It also presents a methodology that can monitor the effectiveness of such campaigns, something absent in the current literature.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to present gamified mobile experiences as valid tools for DMOs to enrich the experience of tourists, and to present the benefits provided to DMOs by analytics tools integrated on gamified mobile experiences.

Staff from three DMOs have generated a gamified mobile experience using a custom authoring tool designed and developed to fulfil their requirements. This gamified experience has targeted families with children visiting Basque Country during off-peak season. The experience has been validated over a period of seven weeks within a pilot project promoted by the local tourist information offices of the DMOs. Data directly provided by tourists and data gathered from analytic tools integrated on the gamified mobile experience have been analysed to fulfil the research objectives presented on the paper.

Both DMOs and tourists can benefit from gamified mobile experiences. The integration of analytics tools to gain insights into the behaviour of tourists can be a relevant information source for DMOs.

The pilot project has targeted a niche tourism market, families with children visiting Basque Country, and has been running during off-peak season. Further studies focusing on other tourist types and different tourism season and destination types will be required to strengthen the validation of the research objectives presented on this paper.

The paper promotes both the development of gamified mobile experiences and the inclusion of analytics tools for DMOs to obtain relevant information about tourists and the mobile experiences.

A gamified mobile experience is generated by DMOs, validated on the basis of experience of real tourists. The analytics tools inside the gamified mobile experience provide DMOs with relevant information.

This paper aims to serve as an introduction to a rather under-researched field. It aims to provide a conceptual definition of destination management organisations (DMOs) serving as leadership networks in destinations drawing on what is to be called the DMO Leadership Cycle – a guiding framework integrating the perspectives of management, governance and leadership to influence destination development trajectories.

A synthesis of the extant literature on destination management and governance, coupled with the latest academic contributions in destination leadership serves to uncover the existence of a gap in the way leadership is seen in the underpinned domain. DMOs are conceptualised and their role in serving as leadership networks in destinations is then critically discussed.

Perspectives of destination management, governance and leadership and their interaction with one another is fundamental to DMOs serving as leadership networks. The paper provides justification for and indicative definition of contemporary DMOs serving as leadership networks in destinations.

The conceptual nature of this paper calls for empirical evidence where DMOs serving as leadership networks are further investigated in practice and across diverse political and economic contexts.

This paper aims to shape destination leadership practice by introducing an alternative, yet inclusive approach to leadership focussing on collective orchestration in destinations undertaken by DMO networks.

The paper aims to trigger a discussion on the importance of all-encompassing and integrative leadership as a means for widening participation across diverse destination groups; to serve as an input into and ultimately – shape policy development.

This discussion provides an alternative perspective to the way we see leadership in destinations. The paper argues that “impactful” leadership is rather embedded in a formal structure and distributed in nature.

This work provides a generic review of the existing data mining ontologies (DMOs) and also provides a base platform for ontology developers and researchers for gauging the ontologies for satisfactory coverage and usage.

The study uses a systematic literature review approach to identify 35 DMOs in the domain between the years 2003 and 2021. Various parameters, like purpose, design methodology, operations used, language representation, etc. are available in the literature to review ontologies. Accompanying the existing parameters, a few parameters, like semantic reasoner used, knowledge representation formalism was added and a list of 20 parameters was prepared. It was then segregated into two groups as generic parameters and core parameters to review DMOs.

It was observed that among the 35 papers under the study, 26 papers were published between the years 2006 and 2016. Larisa Soldatova, Saso Dzeroski and Pance Panov were the most productive authors of these DMO-related publications. The ontological review indicated that most of the DMOs were domain and task ontologies. Majority of ontologies were formal, modular and represented using web ontology language (OWL). The data revealed that Ontology development 101, METHONTOLOGY was the preferred design methodology, and application-based approaches were preferred for evaluation. It was also observed that around eight ontologies were accessible, and among them, three were available in ontology libraries as well. The most reused ontologies were OntoDM, BFO, OBO-RO, OBI, IAO, OntoDT, SWO and DMOP. The most preferred ontology editor was Protégé, whereas the most used semantic reasoner was Pellet. Even ontology metrics for 16 DMOs were also available.

This paper carries out a basic level review of DMOs employing a parametric approach, which makes this study the first of a kind for the review of DMOs.

Interview data from a two and a half year study of 20 District General Managers (DGMs) from a wide variety of backgrounds confirmed the view that there has been widespread dissatisfaction about the work of the District Medical Officer (DMO). This dissatisfaction was often mirrored by the DMOs themselves. We therefore supplemented the interviews with a questionnaire listing 16 principal functions of community medicine and asked the DGMs and their DMOs independently to rate the amount of attention devoted by the DMO to each function both currently and ideally. We found a contrast between the overall uncertainty and concern expressed about community medicine during discussions, and the enthusiasm for the itemized community medical functions. There was close correlation between the DGMs' and DMOs' mean rates, which were always higher in the ideal than the current rating, and particularly so for the DMO's work in information and assessment of need, in service evaluation, and — only among the DMOs' responses — in the independent advocacy of public health. We present the detailed results for all the functions, and discuss the implications of these and our interview data for the implementation of the Acheson Report and for the managerial education of public health physicians.

Destination management organizations perform a very important role regarding the management of tourism destinations. Destination management systems are a key technological infrastructure for these organizations. However, in the literature, it is not clear what are the factors that promote the implementation of these systems, neither what are the factors that contribute to their success. This study aims to propose and test two research models to overcome these research gaps.

The first model refers to the determinants of the implementation of destination management systems, and the second model refers to the determinants of the success of those systems. The models are tested with data collected through a questionnaire survey from destination management organizations of five European countries, which are among the leaders in international tourism receipts.

Concerning the factors that promote the implementation of destination management systems, this study reveals the importance of the diversity of partnerships that the private sector establishes in the destination, of advantages resulting from governance and of partners' involvement in the functions of destination management organizations. Concerning the factors that promote the success of these systems, this study highlights the importance of a phased implementation, the fact that a high number of functionalities in the system prevents success and the importance of having a revenue model that can support financial and operating costs.

The study provides important theoretical and practical contributions to the successful implementation of destination management systems by destination management organizations.

This chapter aims to conceptualise the role of gastronomy and events in destination strategic development and explore the possibility for destination management organisations (DMOs) to capitalise their potential. Thus, it firstly explores the role of gastronomy and events in contemporary tourism and their impact on destination appeal, authenticity and development. Secondly, it delves into the possible ways by which DMOs can utilise events to achieve destination goals and competitiveness. As gastro events are a common denominator of gastro-tourism and events, they are given special attention. In the empirical part, two prominent destinations in the most developed tourism country of the Western Balkans, Croatia, are analysed. Also, in the empirical part, archival analysis is used to analyse relevant documentation and sources covering the 2016–2018 period. In the analysis, the strategic role of gastronomy, events and DMOs' activities and budgets are explored to unveil the existing interlinkages and patterns among them. The contribution of the study is the systematisation and critical review of existing literature on the role of gastronomy and events in the destination offer and of DMOs' usage of events for achieving destination goals and competitiveness. The chapter provides valuable implications for destination strategic management and marketing as well as for future academic studies on the subject.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the online communication strategies used by destination management organizations (DMOs) during a terrorist attack. In particular, this study analyzes Twitter use during seven terrorism incidents in six European cities (Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, London and Barcelona) between 2015 and 2017.

Twitter content was collected via NCapture, a web browser extension of NVivo, one week prior to the attacks, the day of, and two weeks following to determine the timeframe in which DMOs communicated about the crisis, the types of messages being communicated, and whether these messages are effective. This study uses Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory as a guide to analyzing the effectiveness of the crisis communication strategies.

The findings of this paper indicate that DMOs are not effectively using Twitter during a terrorist attack. Few tweets relating to the attacks provided tourists with information regarding their safety, with the remaining only communicating as victims. Many DMOs went offline in the days immediately following the attacks and each DMO’s crisis communication on Twitter only lasted up to one week following the attacks.

This study provides insight into the ways DMOs are using social media for crisis communication. These results inform DMOs on their responsibility in communicating information during a terrorist attack. Messages of support are useful in the recovery stage, but tourists need information on how to stay safe and Twitter is often the first source people go to for information (Simon et al., 2014).