Key challenges in Managing Collaborative Destination Brands along the Wild Atlantic Way (WAW)

The Wild Atlantic Way is Ireland's first long-distance touring route, stretching along the Atlantic coast from Donegal to West Cork. The overall aim of the project is to develop a route that will achieve greater visibility for... [ view full abstract ]

The Wild Atlantic Way is Ireland's first long-distance touring route, stretching along the Atlantic coast from Donegal to West Cork. The overall aim of the project is to develop a route that will achieve greater visibility for the west coast of Ireland in overseas tourist markets (www.failteireland.ie). The purpose of this paper is to; “identify what are the key challenges in Managing Collaborative Destination Brands along the Wild Atlantic Way?”.

Throughout the tourism literature there is an increased interest in destination branding. Many areas recognise the potential for branding of a tourism destination. Hankinson (2004) asserts it is more difficult to manage a destination brand in contrast to a service brand. Stakeholder engagement is vital to destination success. Cooperation, coordination and linkages are key (Lumsdon, 1997).

It is the collaborative requirement that may differentiate the management of a destination brand compared to product or service branding. Problems that may occur range from ulterior motives and disparity amongst stakeholders (Wang and Fesenmaier, 2007) to inclusion of maximum number of stakeholders (Jamal and Getz, 1995). Lally, O’Donovan and Quinlan (2015) articulate that structure, membership, activities and benefits, and challenges can affect stakeholder engagement.

For effective collaboration to occur many factors need to be considered that includes; the potential benefits of collaboration (Palmer and Bejou, 1995) and the building of trust (d’ A ngella and Go, 2009). Recently Line and Wang (2017) have introduced their framework for multi-stakeholder market approach to destination marketing (DM) that is representative of the growing research in this area.

What emerges in the literature is the need for collaboration. Collaboration has become a strategy that destinations have identified and embraced without fully using the potential of collaboration (Fyall, Garrod and Wang, 2012). This paper explores how collaboration is managed along WAW destination brands and what are the key challenges?

The Wild Atlantic Way provides a relevant and useful framework to explore the area of managing collaborative branding. Primary research to explore what are the key challenges in managing destination brands will inform the study. As this research is exploratory, a qualitative approach is appropriate as it is widely used in tourism destination research (Lally, O’Donovan and Quinlan, 2015; Cizel, Ajanovic and Cakar, 2016; Wang, Hutchinson, Okumus and Naipaul 2013). In-depth interviews completed with managerial stakeholders along the WAW will provide useful insight.

The study in an Irish context should add to the current knowledge in theoretical and practical terms. In particular, the study may have meaningful social impact in terms of regional development. According to the OECD (2015), ‘regional development is a broad term but can be seen as a general effort to reduce regional disparities by supporting (employment and wealth-generating) economic activities in regions’.

As tourism has emerged as a major growth sector in the global economy, governments have realised the potential contribution to a country’s trade performance that the industry can provide (Faulkner, 2003). The reasons for adopting tourism as a development strategy are the apparent positive contributions the industry has on both the national and local economies and it is widely recognised that through tourism regions can achieve development (Sharpley and Telfer, 2002). Tourism can have both a positive and negative impact on a destination depending on the type of tourism development at any given destination; nonetheless, if tourism is properly planned and regulated then negative impacts can be minimised (Swain and Mishra, 2012). These types of impacts involve the economic, environmental and social impacts that tourism brings to a destination (Wall and Mathieson, 2006).

Destination branding can act as a mechanism to pursue sustainable regional development through tourism. Increased revenue from tourists can affect positively on a regions economic, social and environmental development. This study should make an original contribution as no prior investigation into “how to manage” collaborative destination brands along the WAW has occurred.

List of references:

D’Angella, F. and Go, F. (2009) Tale of two cities collaborative tourism marketing: Towards a theory of destination stakeholder assessment. Tourism Management 30: pp.429-440.

Cizel, B., Ajanovic, E. and Cakar, K. (2016) “Prerequisites for effective and sustainable destination governance”, An International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality, Vol. 27, Issue 2, pp. 155-166.

Faulkner, B. (2003) Progressing tourism research. Clevedon: Channel view publications.

Fyall, A. and Garrod, B. (2005) Tourism marketing. A collaborative approach. 1^st ed. Clevedon: Channel view publications.

Fyall, A., Garrod, B. and Wang, Y. (2012) Destination collaboration: A critical review of theoretical approaches to a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Journal of Destination Marketing and Management, Vol. 1. No. 1: pp. 10-26.

Hankinson, G. (2004) “The brand images of tourism destinations: A study of the saliency of organic images”, Journal of Product & Brand Management, 13(1), pp. 6-14.

Jamal, T. and Getz, D. (1995) “Collaboration Theory and Community Tourism Planning”, Annals of Tourism Research, 22, 1, pp. 186-204.

Lally, A.M., O’Donovan, I. and Quinlan, T.  (2015) “Stakeholder engagement in destination management: Exploring key success factors”, 11^th Annual Tourism and Hospitality Research in Ireland Conference (THRIC), 11-12 June.

Line, N. and Wang, Y. (2017) “A multi-stakeholder market oriented approach to destination marketing”, Journal of Destination Marketing and Management, 6, pp. 84-93.

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Palmer, A. and Bejou, D. (1995) “Tourism Destination Marketing Alliances”, Annals of Tourism Research, 22, 3, pp. 616-629.

Sharpley, R and Telfer, D. (2002) Tourism and development. Concepts and issues. Clevedon: Channel view publications.

Swain, S. and Mishra, J. (2012) Tourism. Principles and practices. New Dehli: Oxford University Press.

Wall, G. and Mathieson, A. (2006) Tourism: Change, Impacts and opportunities. 2^nd ed. London: Prentice Hall.

Wang, Y. and Fesenmaier, D. (2007) “Collaborative destination marketing: A case study of Elkhart county, Indiana”. Tourism Management, 28, pp. 863-875.

Wang, Y., Hutchinson, J., Okumus, F. and Naipaul, S.  (2013) “Collaborative Marketing in a Regional Destination: Evidence from Central Florida”, International Journal of Tourism Research, 15, pp. 285-297.

www.failteireland.ie accessed 25/01/2018