Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
169
Formulating the Corridor Theme
A set theme needs to be determined for the formalized corridor. This helps stakeholders to
collaboratively promote a tourism corridor in an efficient manner. The theme can be simple,
such as the HANSA Culinary Route, or broad, with sub-corridors, such as Mekong Tourism. The
final theme should be clearly defined by the working group and agreed upon by all parties.
Brand consultancy is recommended at this stage to find the best solution for the destinations.
The Danube Competence Center, for example, benefits from a strong existing brand, “The
Danube River,” and has created products around this brand. They didn't need to create a new
brand. In contrast, the Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office (MTCO) created Mekong Tourism
as a new brand, which had to be promoted as a single destination. The Mekong river was not
well known internationally and was not associated with the six countries it crosses. This
allowed the MTCO to have a “clean start,” which benefits any online activity because of limited
online competition for a similar theme or brand.
Once a theme has been established, more detailed branding activities should be conducted —
more on this under Marketing and Promotions.
Once a tourism corridor has been established, and depending on its type, it can also be
extended. Policies to extend a corridor usually involve the member countries, which need to
decide if another country or region should be added to the corridor.
Governance and Management
Setting Up a Governance Structure
To set up and create successful tourism corridors, countries must develop policies for
cooperation in this field. A long-term approach might be a separate secretariat, such as the
Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office, which administers a joint working group comprised of
the participating countries. Another option would be to create a public-private partnership that
promotes products in the corridor, such as the Danube Competence Center. Then depending on
the importance of the region and the prospective benefits for stakeholders, it is advisable to
create official policies and define responsibilities for each corridor (or a group of corridors).
Also, the scope of the corridor has to be defined - does it only concern tourism or also other
economic factors related to tourism, such as infrastructure, education, ICT.
The general recommendation is to follow the best practice examples (Chapter One) of a public-
private partnership model. Using a tourism advisory group similar to the Mekong Tourism
Advisory Group helps to gain valuable insights from industry experts from the public and
private sectors.
Every structure should also incorporate operational considerations. Even though partners in a
corridor might decide not to endorse a corridor formally, it will create administrative and
operational work. It is thus recommended for multi-lateral partners to decide how to address
any work raised through a formal or informal corridor. Administrative work might be passed
through a working group, one of the partners, or a management structure for the corridor.
There is a wide range of structures to manage cross-border corridor initiatives. The governance
can be hands-off with little cooperative involvement from a regional organization. Hands-on,