MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNANCE AS A
CHALLENGE FOR TOURISM
DESTINATION DEVELOPMENT
A tale of many sandwiches
1. Introducing Destination Management Organisations (DMOs)
2. Institutionalist perspectives on destination development
3. Challenges of flexible geographical scales
4. Between public and private challenges
5. Linking consumers and producers
Professor Henrik Halkier
Aalborg University, Denmark
halkier@cgs.aau.dk
DMOs:
Rationales and cross-pressures
What?
 ”.. the organisations responsible for the management and/or
marketing of destinations” (UNWTO)
 public, national/regional/local, diverse tasks
Why?
 handling of cross-pressures
 improving outcomes
Inter/national
Producer
Public
DMO
Private
Consumer
Local
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk
INSTITUTIONALIST PERSPECTIVES
on destination management
Socioeconomic
context
State/region
Tourists
Competitors
Destination
Sponsoring
Strategy
Resources
DMO
Organisation
Aims
Instruments
Knowledge
Targets
Focus on three central relations
 the destination and its political, social, economic contexts
 the DMO and it targets: firms, workforce, tourists, institutions
 last but not least: the DMO and its sponsors
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk
CHALLENGING GEOGRAPHIES
of destination management
Top-down intervention
 National institutional engineering
 EU (de-)regulation
Danish Tourist Board
Local associations
85
Destination partnerships
Tourism export groups
Case: Regional DMOs
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk
Regional Tourism Boards
95
Product partnerships
02
Regional partnerships
07
CHALLENGING GEOGRAPHIES
of destination management
Top-down intervention
 National institutional engineering
 EU (de-)regulation
Case: Regional DMOs
 Uneven process
 Overlapping competences
 Difficult coordination
 New international competition
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk
CHALLENGING GEOGRAPHIES
of destination management
Top-down intervention
 National institutional engineering
 EU (de-)regulation
Bottom-up ungovernability
 Inter-local competition
 Civil society anchoring
Case: VisitMariagerfjord
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk
CROSS-SECTOR CHALLENGES
of destination management
Public-private interactions
 Essential for tourist experience
 Many faces of public sector
Strategy development
 Strategic dilemmas
 Competition/cooperation • from service optimisation
Case: Top of Denmark
•
•
via joint marketing
to experience development
DMO as cluster organisation?
• external network link
• for local organisations/SMEs
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk
THE ULTIMATE DMO CHALLENGE
Linking producers and consumers
EURODITE
case studies
Organisation
Attraction
Cultural
Natural
Individual
Ruhr heritage
Achterhoek rural
Skaane film
North Jutland DMOs
Antalya branding
North Jutland museums
Collective
Antalya football
DMO activities
 development of new services
 knowledge-intensive policies
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk
Antalya coastal
Scope for policy development
 creative market intelligence
 extra-regional sources
 skills of DMOs/SMEs
THE ULTIMATE DMO CHALLENGE
Linking producers and consumers
Local/present producers
 More of the same
 Imitative enterpreneurialism
 Mobilisation of tacit knowledge
Consumers far away
 Mobilisation of tacit knowledge
 Standardised market intelligence
 Competition largely ignored
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk
CONCLUSIONS
Beyond multi-level governance
Good news
 Necessity of vertical networking
 Scope to act at destination level
Unsurprising news
 Horizontal networking equally important
 Pragmatic involvement of private actors
Akward news
 Need for more informed action
 Creative intelligence on demand and competition
Henrik Halkier, halkier@cgs.aau.dk