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Destination Development and

Institutionalization Strategies

In the OIC Member Countries

66

6.

Lessons Learned

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DMOs can draw on various parts of their history and heritage to draw tourists who are interested in

different activities. There is a multicultural and multidimensional development of tourism in the

country. Azerbaijan is primarily a Muslim country, but there is Wine Route (as part of German

heritage) tourism product. It is a southern and primarily warm climate country, but it has managed

to develop two ski resorts. It is developing national/traditional arts (carpet weaving, silk production,

cuisine), but at the same time it plays a significant role is development of modern culture (Jazz

Festivals, Rostropovich Classical Music Festivals etc.). These integrated multidimensional tourism

products “for all tastes” can be considered as a benchmark/example for several destinations, which

don’t always offer that variety.

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DMOs have begun to recognize the need for public-private partnership (PPP) to improve

communication between the public and private sectors in tourism and facilitate the planning,

development and marketing processes, which is illustrated by the development of the convention

bureau to create a synergy between public and private entities in the development of MICE Tourism.

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DMO set up process shall involve intensive training process, as a professional capacity in tourism is

very limited in regions of the country;

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NTOs does not have enough resources and time to fully commit to different destinations within the

country, which is the reason Azerbaijan has initiated a pilot project to create regional DMOs.

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Learning from best practices in other destinations can help in the creation of DMOs; Azerbaijan is

using the DMO development model that was used in Georgia, by repurposing tourist information

centers into regional DMOs.

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Legislation needs to be implemented to facilitate de-centralization of tourism management and

allocating more authority and budgets to local destination management organizations.