Improving tourism destination governance: a complexity science approach

Abstract

Purpose-The growing interest in complexity science as a framework for understanding social and economic systems has had, in recent times, an influence on the study of tourism destinations. This paper aims to describe this approach and discuss its theoretical and methodological implications in terms of destination governance. Design/methodology/approach-Traditional research has adopted a reductionist approach to modelling tourist destinations: variables and relationships are embedded in simplified linear models that explain observed phenomena and allow implications for management or forecasting of future behaviours. In comparison, this paper adopts an adaptive management approach. Rather than imposing lines of action to force the evolutionary path of a system, the effect of different management actions are modelled, producing experimental results that provide information about the system that is being managed, and used to refine strategies and governance styles. Complex systems provide a theoretical framework in which this adaptive philosophy is naturally embedded. After a brief overview of the complexity framework, the paper discusses its validity and applicability to the study of tourism systems by using a set of network analysis methods and numerical simulations. Findings-This paper discusses a new perspective useful for the study of tourism destination governance, providing insights into its organisational structure and dynamic behaviour. Originality/value-The paper proposes a philosophy and practical toolset to analyse and understand a tourism destination and the relationships between its stakeholders. It discusses the implications of this new approach with regard to the governance methods.

Resilience to climate change in a cross-scale tourism governance context: a combined quantitative-qualitative network analysis

“…Among the most commonly used global summary statistics are network size, density, average degree centrality, and global efficiency; often used local statistics are degree-, betweenness-, and closeness centrality, and local efficiency; a meso-scale structure can be expressed through modularity and cohesion (clustering; e.g., Burt 2004, Costa et al 2007, Olsson et al 2007, Scott et al 2008a, Bodin and Crona 2009, Baggio et al 2010a,b, Baggio 2011. The interpretation of these metrics for resilience of SES and their meanings for adaptive and innovative capacities are summarized in Table 1.…”

Acción colectiva y gobernanza del Centro Histórico de Mazatlán, México. Recuperación y conversión a espacio turístico

“…El territorio,como construcción social, es insumo básico del producto turístico e incide en su competitividad en los mercados (Nava, 2011; Nava y Soto, 2012). En este contexto, los estudios de Hjalager (2000;2010 Scott, et al, (2008), Baggio, et al,(2010), Nava (2013), Nava, et al, (2013), , identificaron que los cambios más importantes en turismo se enfocan en la experiencia que el lugar es capaz de hacer sentir al visitante; que el habitar temporalmente en ese lugar lo traslade a un imaginario distinto a su vida cotidiana. Para lograrlo, la gobernanza local es fundamental, ya que la concatenación de objetivos y la acción colectiva planeada, genera capital relacional que mejora el producto turístico; permite unir acciones para optimizar la experiencia del visitante.…”

Tourism Destination Governance v kontextu teoretických poznatků

“…Z výzkumného hlediska je předmětem zájmu spolupráce a její sítě, které jsou zkoumány pomocí teorií meziorganizační spolupráce (Alter a Hage, 1993; Palmer a Bejou, 1995). Nejčastěji jsou v tomto kontextu citovány teorie závislosti na zdrojích 1 , teorie vztahové (sociální) změny 2 , teorie racionální volby a teorie transakčních nákladů.…”

“…The network theory is not able to capture in detail the nature and source of interaction, and therefore the focal point is the concept of destination governance that applied the corporate governance theory (Beritelli, Bieger and Laesser, 2007;Nordin and Svensson, 2007;Baggio, Scott and Cooper, 2010;Pechlaner, Volgger and Herntrei, 2012). The paper reviews foreign theoretical knowledge and approaches to tourism destination governance and summarizes the utilized methods.…”