Editorial: Destination Governance - special issue

With this special issue of Tourism Review dedicated to destination governance a further step in the recent debate on the topic is taken. There are various areas of research in related field such as corporate governance, regional governance, and stakeholder theory in communities. However, until recently there was no specific area for how tourist destinations must be organized, coordinated and governed through mechanisms of action and control. By focusing on identifying typologies of governance, on involved actors and institutions, and on relevant dimensions, this special issue directs the meanwhile broad body of literature on destination management into a direction where the reasons and conditions for effective planning and development are reviewed.

One basic question is the identification of the term governance and its relevance for tourist destinations. The paper presented by Ruhanen, Scott, Ritchie and Tkaczynski offers an excellent introduction on how the discussion of what is comprised in destination governance is still in its early beginnings and will continue to evolve. Three contributions show from different angles that stakeholder theory plays an important role in understanding the mechanisms of governance. The paper presented by Franch, Martini and Buffa describes at the case of two alpine destinations how primary and secondary stakeholders differ in their opinion on central issues for the destination while the paper "Archetypes of destination governance: a comparison of international destinations" compare typologies of governance. Presenza and Cipollina adopt social network analysis to analyze stakeholder networks. Also, the analysis of networks in general, based on system theory, is a methodological discussion presented by Baggio, Scott and Cooper. We see that governance issues arise when communities or collectives have to find a common way of how to plan, act and assess. The paper presented by Buteau-Duitschaever, McCutcheon, Eagles, Havitz and Glover presents this issue from a visitor point of view.

Covering all possible facets of governance issues and questions at the case of tourist destinations would go beyond the size of this special issue. However, we think that with the help of these selected contributions, you could gain an insight into the topic.

We sincerely thank the authors as well as the reviewers for their efforts and their collaboration. And we wish you, dear reader, to find inspiration and new ideas for the future.