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The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative perspective on understanding the coordinating role of destination management organizations. Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) are known to have a coordinating role within a destination. Many qualitative case studies discuss this role in the institutional context, assuming that the DMO is supposed to coordinate the network of the organizations and stakeholder groups in the destination. By contrast, this paper analyzes the coordinator role of DMOs by focusing primarily on the prominent individuals (directors and board members) affiliated with it. In so doing, it proposes an alternative perspective on these organizations. Looking at the influential individuals in the destination, in particular those affiliated with the DMO, reveals new insights into what the DMO alternatively could be from an individual’s perspective.

Using social network analysis, the coordinator role of the actors affiliated with the DMO for six destination cases in Switzerland, Italy and Austria was measured. First, the network of the most salient individuals in the destination was identified. Second, the coordinator score with the help of the Gould and Fernandez measure was measured. Third, the coordinator scores of individuals affiliated with the DMO were compared against those of the other actors in the network. Fourth, the scores of actors affiliated with the DMO and other actors were compared to the coordinator role attributed to the whole organization by those individuals (i.e. how they see the DMO as coordinator). Fifth, the analysis of the results with case-specific information was completed.

In each of the six destinations, there are actors affiliated with the DMO as top scorers; these are usually the president of the board and other board members, as well as the director. Additionally, the analysis identifies further board members of the DMO among the tourist elite in the destination. The DMO as an organization is generally seen as an important coordinating institution. In particular, the actors affiliated with the DMO attribute a higher coordinating role to the organization than do the other respondents.

In their board constellation, DMOs support the formation of interlocking directorships through the representation of various stakeholder groups. They increase the concentration of power in favor of a small group (elite), but they can also increase the effectiveness of decisional processes. In so doing, a DMO serves as a valuable platform for leaders in its destination.

This study affords a surprising insight into the difference between the overall image actors have of DMOs and the organizations’ self-images, expressed by the actors affiliated to the organizations – the former is always lower than the latter. The study also clearly demonstrates that the role of an institution largely depends on the actors affiliated to it and hence points to the constantly adapting coordinating role of DMOs within destinations.

A DMO can be seen as an organization constituted by individuals who join and leave its board or its management. This paper proposes an actor-based analysis of these often small, but controversially discussed organizations. We do it with a combination of quantitative measures from network analysis and qualitative information. The alternative perspective (actors of the DMOs inside the elite) and the application of social network analysis for this purpose have not been used in studies before. Further research points to two new research streams, namely, to understanding the role attributed to the DMO by different actors in the destination and the reasons for joining/leaving the organization and the shift of the self-concept of the DMO.

Starting from the tenet that destination management deserves a systemic approach the authors first explain the meaning of systemic leadership and then discuss its relevance for tourist destinations. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it develops a concept of destination leadership based on a systemic perspective and therefore prevents a common misunderstanding, namely that destination leadership may simply generate from organizational leadership. Second, the concept builds on extant literature on destination governance and in so doing it stretches the vector of this research stream (governance) into a supplemental field (leadership).

Based on recent empirical research in the field of systemic research in destinations, the concept of destination leadership is elaborated in a wider context of destination management.

As a result, a set of dimensions and mechanisms which drive the systemic development of destinations can be distilled. A framework for further research is proposed and tested with the help of an empirical study with a set of influential actors from four destinations in Switzerland, Austria, and Italy.

The results reveal that influence as a proxy for systemic leadership is supported by trust and effective communication. Other leadership dimensions derived from traditional leadership literature such as mutual understanding, accessibility (non-significant) or likeability (negatively affecting influence) prove to be irrelevant to systemic leadership. The implications underline the need to differentiate between leadership in inter-organizational arrangements and leadership in destinations, understood as communities and complex social systems.

For actors in a tourism destination, the atmospheric turn initially means looking at themselves in a more holistic and differentiated way. Through the analysis of strategic visitor flows, it is possible to identify subspaces with high frequency, which thus become identification spaces of a destination. Together with other identification fields, they shape the destination brand understood as spatial and atmospheric entity. This enables a different view of a destination, its structure and generates new opportunities for destination management, which wll be discussed in the form of an outlook. A destination manager, for example, could in the future collaborate with governmental bodies responsible for spatial planning and with private builders on spatial design projects and introduce the perspective of the destination as a branded space.

The systemic nature of tourism products generates the need for a broad involvement of destination stakeholders in the destination management organization's (DMO) activities and makes destination governance, defined as the setting up and developing of rules and mechanisms for business strategies by involving stakeholders (Beritelli et al.), an interesting topic. Over the last seven years the authors have conducted an in‐depth study of governance and performance of 13 European tourism destinations – three mountain and two seaside destinations, four urban cities and four small heritage cities (Sainaghi; d'Angella; De Carlo and Dubini) – which represent an interesting sample to study this topic. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

A qualitative methodology is adopted; applying a theoretical model (Airoldi et al.) to the sample, the authors analyzed the governance structure of the selected destinations in terms of typologies of stakeholders involved, contributions provided, rewards obtained, decision‐making processes and mechanisms which link these four components.

The clinical cases (Yin; Eisenhardt) reported in the paper reveal several archetypes in destination governance structures defined according to different variables: destination manager characteristics; amount (absolute and relative) of financial contributions managed by the destination manager; financial model (firms and public bodies participation in destination manager annual budget); number of actors participating in the governance structure; number of actors participating in permanent meta‐management activities.

The empirical analysis offers interesting implications for both the academic debate and practitioners. From an academic point of view, this categorization enriches the academic contributions on destination governance, which are often descriptive. Moreover, the model allows identifying key variables and relationships in order to analyze and assess destination governance structures. At the same time, this framework offers interesting insights for destination managers responsible for the design and management of the governance structure.

This paper proposes a model originally projected to analyze firms' governance for the analysis of DMOs governance. The authors decided to apply this model because it offers a new perspective to study destination governance, which considers the complexity of the environment and the different kinds of relationships between stakeholders.

Despite the proliferation of the governance concept in the broader academic literature, there is little agreement on definitions, scope and what actually constitutes governance. This is arguably due to the fact that empirical research on the topic, with some exceptions, is generally limited to case studies without use of any common conceptual framework. This is certainly the case in other fields of study and is becoming increasingly obvious in tourism research also. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to explore and synthesize the governance literature with the objective of identifying the key elements and dimensions of governance.

Drawing on the two “parent” bodies of literature originating in the political sciences and corporate management fields of study, the paper provides a review and synthesis of the governance concept with the objective of identifying the primary elements and factors that have been employed in studies of governance to date.

A review of 53 published governance studies identified 40 separate dimensions of governance. From this review, the six most frequently included governance dimensions were: accountability, transparency, involvement, structure, effectiveness and power.

A synthesis of the governance literature has not been undertaken to date, either in the tourism literature or in other fields of study, and in doing so the authors provide a basis for tourism researchers to draw on a set of comparable conceptual dimensions in future research. Comparable dimensions which can be replicated and tested in empirical research will add additional depth and rigor to studies in this field.

In remote rural areas such as the Alps, communities present a set of specific laws, norms and rules. According to social capital theory, these idiosyncrasies are founded on the closure of the actors in the community. On the contrary, as tourist destinations develop, enterprises and organizations gradually acquire non‐local directors in the boards, slowly affecting the identity of the local community. The aim of the paper is to analyze whether interlocking directorships with board members, residing outside of the destination, really increases openness in the boards of the organizations.

For a set of salient organizations in six tourism destinations in Austria and in Switzerland, the authors analyzed the networks of interlocks between local and non‐local (outside of the region, outside of the country) board directors.

Chi‐square tests for group differences in tie densities show that, with the exception of the control destination Zürich, intragroup linkages (i.e. locals and non‐locals among their peers) are stronger than intergroup linkages.

Further research must address the operationalization of social capital with a set of variables that could be checked against increasing interlocks with non‐local directors, and the validation of the results of the six case studies with additional tourist destinations and regions and in the context of other industries, where inherently the identity and the underlying social capital may be less developed.

The benefits of interlocking directorships with non‐local board members (i.e. acquisition of knowledge, increase of reputation for the destination) may fail to appear, when these actors do not effectively join with local board directors. In contrast, rather close networks of local board directors may increase the probability of collective action, effective sanctioning, and, generally speaking, the development of social capital.

A tourist destination or generally a community must ponder the benefits of either one of the aspects. That is, a closed community guarantees the preservation of reciprocal trust and the development of locally grown and accepted governance. In contrast, by increasing the organizational connections with external directors in the boards, the enterprises may gain additional knowledge, new financial resources, etc. but they may undermine historically grown rules and norms as well as routines that are founded on reciprocal trust and a common identity.

The functionalities of destination communities are of growing interest for tourism researchers. However, tourism research has never focused on networks of interlocking directorships. By analyzing interlocking directorships in the context of tourist destination communities, this research opens a new stream of discussion for both community research, and the usefulness of research on interlocking directorships.