Communicate, incorporate and appreciate: the role of network managers in working towards a resilient tourism network

Tourism is through its composite nature a domain in which partnerships are a necessary ingredient for sustainable governance. Even though heritage sites are often the main focus of the tourist, the system surrounding the sites is crucial for tourist experience. This has led to a growing interest in tourism networks as a destination governance mechanism that can integrate tourism. Promising claims stating that tourism networks could provide a sustainable, inclusive and horizontally organized governance system, however, have seldom been stacked with empirical evidence. Tourism networks are facing the fear of becoming a buzzword and be relegated to the realm of destination management clichés. This paper investigates the practice of tourism network management by posing the question to what extent networks can provide a viable governance approach for heritage sites and tourism destinations. Flanders, with its world famous art cities, renowned local and artisan products and lively contemporary cultural scene, holds heritage as an important tourism asset and features as a case study for this paper. From international to local scale levels: perspectives of networks operating on different scale levels are used to gain understanding in network governance. An in-depth qualitative study of 12 tourism networks through key stakeholder interviews with network managers (n 15) provides an insight into how tourism networks can become viable governance entities. First, a network manager often needs to levitate between private and public entities. In the case of Flanders, most networks were found to be heavily relying on support from public authorities, often Provincial governments, for their survival. Networks are often not resilient against changes in the political landscape or administrative reforms. Strong dependency on public entities causes an insecure future, a lack of long term planning and the inability to represent the network members in political matters. Second, it was found that network managers could strengthen the position of the network. Managers who are able 1) to form a vision that aligns the network members and 2) to involve their members more in the network were better able to sustain resilience in a network. Bottom-up network structures, acknowledgement of member involvement, trust and proximity play an important role in this process. Furthermore, it seems that it is not the network formation per se, but the process of networking by a broker that might be most beneficial for a heritage site or destination.

ISBN:978-90-9029477-3

Publication year:2015

Accessibility:Closed