| This thesis applies a stakeholder theory analysis to tourism destination management organizations (DMOs). It consists of two empirical studies that form the basis for three separate essays. The first study is quantitative in nature and based on a structured mail survey of ninety one (91) chief executive officers of North American DMOs. This study is the basis for two essays. In the first essay, a DMO stakeholder map is created revealing a great diversity of stakeholders of varying importance, with hotels and city government clearly emerging as most salient. Also, stakeholders are specifically analyzed within the Savage, Nix, Whitehead and Blair (1991) typology according to their potential to threaten and their potential to cooperate with the DMO. This typology prescribes a management strategy specific to each stakeholder type. The prescribed strategies are then compared to the actual strategies the respondent CEOs reported using. In the second essay, external stakeholders are analyzed within the context of a modified version of the Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) typology. The empirical results are generally supportive of the modified Mitchell et al typology.; The second study is qualitative employing a case-based method and is the subject of the third essay. The first empirical study revealed that at the heart of urban tourism promotion lies a triad of powerful players---the city, the hotels, and the DMO. This third essay explores the relationships between the DMO, charged with crafting and executing destination promotion, and its two most powerful stakeholders---the city (or urban government) and hotels (or accommodation sector). In this regard, empirical insights are derived from an examination of three major North American city destinations. In each setting, in-depth key informant interviews were conducted with leaders of each member of the triad (the city, the hotels, and the DMO). The triad is found to be asymmetrical with each member providing a unique and complementary resource. The extent to which members of the triad can effectively relate to one another and combine their complementary resources is shown to be an important determinant of success in destination promotion.; Keywords. stakeholder theory, destination management, destination promotion, stakeholder relationships, resource dependency, destination management organization... |
