Improving Tourism Destination Efficacy: The Role of Destination Marketing Capability

Rapid change in both technological developments and tourist preferences has meant that visitors have become more discerning when they go on holiday and demand a more integrated destination experience. The advantages of... [ view full abstract ]

Rapid change in both technological developments and tourist preferences has meant that visitors have become more discerning when they go on holiday and demand a more integrated destination experience. The advantages of involving numerous stakeholder groups in articulating an integrated destination offering has been broadly accepted, however tourism destinations are highly fragmented due to the multitude of stakeholder types such as private enterprises, public agencies and community groups operating in the destination. Marketing a tourism destination is therefore a complex process as it involves multiple stakeholders and multiple suppliers conveying multiple messages to multiple markets and segments. The purpose of this paper is to examine the processes and dynamics at play within the tourism destination to illustrate the development of destination marketing capability. Adopting a Resource Based View (RBV) perspective, this paper examines the knowledge sharing process between tourism stakeholders in the town of Killarney, a mature destination in the south west of Ireland, to develop a ‘shared story’ to provide an integrated destination marketing communiqué to ensure a consistent message is communicated. This study makes a significant theoretical and practical contribution by providing insight into the development of a marketing management capability in a tourism destination context.