Tale of two cities' collaborative tourism marketing: Towards a theory of destination stakeholder assessment

This paper focuses on collaborative tourism marketing practice, particularly the relationship between the Destination Management Organization (DMO) and tourism firms. It applies stakeholder theory as a framework for such performance assessment concerning the capability of a DMO to gain support for decision making, which contributes towards optimizing stakeholders' rewards while minimizing risks. Whilst destination performance measurement and collaboration evaluation have been recurring themes, there appears to be a dearth in the tourism literature on the relationship between collaborative tourism marketing and the effects of social relations on DMO performance. From the empirical analysis of two comparative case studies concerning Barcelona and Vienna emerges the significant role 'social inclusion' plays in coordinating networks. It is concluded that a strategy of social inclusion is a precondition to jointly carry out contingent activities, converge the goals of firms into a congruent DMO goal, decrease free-riding behavior and, consequently, bring about stable relations. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.