The tourist destination between present and future

Regarding the key-aspects of a destination

By author's opinion tourist destinations in general and city destinations in particular will be a stakeholders construct, a co-creation, as Buhalis (2015) also stated, based on destination's features (attractions, facilities, infrastructure, transportation and hospitality) and on the network of commercial actors connected to the value-chain, supported by technology and within the framework of smartness, that delivers a mix of products and services in order to ensure some particular experiences to visitors and to increase the social and economic well-being of the local community and that requires a strategic and visionary management in order to stay competitive and performing.

Place making and experience design based processes, in the context of smartness (technology and sustainability), and an adequate management that enables a more flexible and faster reaction to destination environment, in the broad sense, will be, in the author’s opinion, the most important features that a destination has to achieve in order to remain competitive, performing and sustainable.

Regarding tourist destination organization

To achieve the mentioned objectives tourist destinations should move beyond marketing activity to redefine its goals and to integrate management functions and development. The solution the author has found in the literature is the DMMO (Destination Marketing and Management Organization) which is starting to be implemented in Vancouver, but only by creating networks between the office coordinator of destination and business groups. There are other cities, well strengthened tourist destination, that try to actually implement this type of project, such examples being presented in the paper.

The author believes that we need to go further with this model, namely that the organization responsible for destination management must build its own or together with policy makers, and mandate community, a vision on which to build a brand correlated with the destination tourism products (and their development) and together with visitor experience, and to communicate it clearly to all stakeholders; maintain the commitment of stakeholders including the local community in its realization by developing the customer relationship management, business communities, local communities, workforce, etc.; be concerned with increasing the quality of offered services; establish partnerships and collaborations with tourist organizations, customers, local communities, universities and other knowledge based institutions or other destination management or marketing organizations, with regional, state, European and international organizations; to develop the technology and techniques of social media, etc. Such an organization could reach an alignment of tourism management strategies with urban growth policies, resulting in a highly attractive tourist destination both for tourists as well as for community and business, profitable and sustainable.

Regarding the tourist destination stakeholders

In tourism there are many different stakeholders involved and finding a common denominator among their concerns has become very difficult. The author believes that addressing stakeholders should be achieved through a strategic management process that considers, on the one hand, the achievement of destinations’ objectives and, on the other hand, the development of strategies for the stakeholders on the long run. These strategies must take into account the actual and perspective needs of stakeholders, through strategic, proactive, built on interdependence, shared values and common objectives.

Obviously, stakeholder management is not a simple thing and this is another argument for the necessity of the destination management organization. A good communication with stakeholders can generate innovation, better goods and services tailored to the needs and expectations of consumers, increase competitiveness and ensure the destinations’ long-term sustainability.

As like most of studied experts agree, the author believes that, despite the time, energy and other resources, the organization has to develop the stakeholder management, because, by addressing their interest, an organization will be sustainable and will perform better.

Local community

Because in modern tourism local communities form a basic element and it is impossible to sustain a tourist destination without the support of the local people, the author considers that local community have to be one of the most important stakeholders in the destination.

The identified problem is that the lack of community is so much the norm in our culture of rugged individualism. So, there is a need to recreate the community with an empowered public that can ensure public services are responsive to their needs, to re-envision how the whole range of types of community may be best brought into decision-making processes, to determine what the people value and what is no longer relevant to them as a community.

Rekindling the community has many benefits. It can deliver pro-environmental behavior change, raised moral standards, can offer a sense of belonging and place attachment, etc. Related to place attachment and the sense of belonging is place identity, a very important asset for tourism.

The author supports the experts’ view regarding the fact that the community based tourism respects people and identity, roots and local customs, is ecological consciousness, stimulates the sustainable development of the local economy, being environmentally and socially responsible.