Destination Development and
Institutionalization Strategies
In the OIC Member Countries
107
create collaborative marketing campaigns. Local DMOs play an important role in developing products,
coordinating stakeholders and creating unified marketing strategies. In the region of Merano, local DMOs
such as the Val Passiria and Naturo have been involved in coordinating local industry players efforts
and developing tourism products in their respective areas. 329
2. DMO Governance and Organizational Structure
In terms of structure, both the Naturno and Val Passiria DMOs have a steering committee, composed
of DMO members, is responsible for decision making and strategic planning, however, decision
making is controlled by a few actors due to their large size and resources. The Naturno DMO has 180
members with 130 of them from the tourism industry. The steering committee of the DMO, which is
responsible for decision making, is dominated by the hoteliers from the Dolce Vita Hotels consortium.
The Val Passiria DMO has more than 400 members mainly from the accommodation establishments
in the three municipalities in the valley. The DMO steering committee, which includes tourism
players, is dominated by the large resort as micro and small size businesses are not highly i nvolved
in decision making and strategic planning due to their inability to devote resources to these areas.
This results in centralized decision making by few large players, which is then supported by the
smaller players.330
With respect to governance, Naturno could be considered a community based destination 331 as it
consists of almost 300 tourism industry players who are mostly micro or small businesses. The Dolce
Vita Hotel represents an “entrepreneurial core” in the destination, acting as “integrative leaders”,
while seeking their interest they are also supporting the development of the other destination
tourism players. The consortium efforts in rebranding the destination and improving infrastructure
attracted higher levels of tourism and enabled tourism services providers to increase their prices. As
for Val Passiria, it can be characterized as having a “leading firm” model of governance 332 , as the
resort has a significant influence on decision making due to its size in the destination. While, the
resort has benefited the destination and tourism businesses, due to its size and resources that give
it the ability to operate independently, it does need to cooperate with other tourism actors which can
give rise to difficult situation in cases of conflicting interests. 333
3. The Role of DMOs
a. The role of DMOs in terms of destination development
On the local level, the private sector can play an important role in destination development, which
makes the DMO ability to foster cooperation and coordinate with local businesses instrumental for
ensuring success in this area. In Naturno, the tourism sector witnessed strong development in the
70s, which led to an increase in investments in tourism and the creation of many accommodation
establishments. However, this was followed by a period of stagnation and eventually tourism started
to decline in the mid-80s because of changing tourism demands and inability to provide the level of
quality tourists expected, which caused the closure of more than a third of accommodation
329 Pechlaner, H., Beritelli, P., Pichler, S., Peters, M., & Scott, N. (2015). Contemporary Destination Governance: A Case Study Approach.
Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice, 6, iii. doi:10.1108/s2042-144320140000006045
330 Ibid.
331 Please refer to the DMO Characteristics and Structure section in chapter 2 for description of the community model.
332 Please refer to the DMO Characteristics and Structure section in chapter 2 for description of the leading firm model.
333 Pechlaner, H., Beritelli, P., Pichler, S., Peters, M., & Scott, N. (2015). Contemporary Destination Governance: A Case Study Approach.
Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice, 6, iii. doi:10.1108/s2042-144320140000006045