Unique Focus on Tourism Context

The tourism industry is characterized by a high degree of complexity, due to factors like its international character, the complexity of the supply chain for tourism products and the diversity of actors involved in the development and management of tourism destinations.

The success of tourism destinations depends to a large extent on the possibilities for  tourism actors in society, to collaborate in the design and implementation of tourism strategies. Multi-stakeholder strategies in tourism will be more successful in societies that are based on consensus. Options for consensus, participation and collaboration, however, need to be placed in the specific historical perspective of a society. In some societies, participation is organized in different ways, because of different dominant ideologies, or styles of leadership.  An understanding of concepts such as hegemony, coercion and power strategies, as well as ideologies and political systems, enables a better analysis of the reasons for the success and failure of tourism destinations in a given period of a nation’s history.

Read more from our experts in Tourism Destination Management.