The fundamental determinants of destination and DMO tourism success: an empirical assessment

Abstract

Tourism success is a phrase often used yet never readily defined. Specifically, what tourism success means for a destination and Destination Management Organization (DMO) pursuing this economic driver. The primary purposes of this study was to examine the construct of tourism success as it relates to both destinations and DMOs, and to determine if a relationship exists between these two phenomena as perceived by multiple internal stakeholders involved in the tourism system. An open-ended structured questionnaire was constructed asking knowledgeable stakeholders across Canada to define the above constructs. Utilizing NVivo software to assist with the coding of responses provided by the respondents, and invoking the many different search tools available, thematic patterns of variables were found, and models developed that showed a relationship does in fact exist between the DMO and the destination in defining tourism success, though not a causal one.