The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0959-6119.htm

Managing
A network perspective on stakeholders
managing stakeholders for
sustainable urban tourism
445
Seldjan Timur
Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Business and Economics, Received 5 July 2007
Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus, Turkey, and Revised 24 August 2007
Accepted 4 January 2008
Donald Getz
Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to examine the current network of inter-relationships of stakeholders
representing government, the community and the tourism and hospitality industry, and their
perceptions of critical stakeholders in destination development.
Design/methodology/approach – While the network analysis enabled examination of the
interconnectedness of stakeholders, the stakeholder approach identified the critical stakeholders in
destination development. These two approaches helped determine how the existing relationship
structures of destination stakeholders might influence sustainable destination development.
Findings – The destination marketing/management organizations (DMOs) and stakeholders with
access to or possession of critical resources have the highest centrality in urban destinations. In all
three clusters, local government and DMOs are perceived to hold the greatest legitimacy and power
over others in destination development. It is also found that there is a lack of “bridges” between the
three clusters of industry, government and the community.
Research limitations/implications – The study demonstrates the use of a network analysis
methodology as a potential tool for researchers and managers in examining destination stakeholder
relationships.
Practical implications – DMOs, hotels and attractions stakeholders have the most crucial roles in
achieving inter-stakeholder collaboration for sustainable destination development, particularly
because the many and diverse industry actors trust or depend on them.
Originality/value – There are very few studies that have applied both network and stakeholder
perspectives to destinations to examine the structure of inter-stakeholder relationships and the
potential influence of this relational structure on sustainable destination development.
Keywords Stakeholder analysis, Urban areas, Tourism
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
There is a large body of literature on sustainable tourism. However its application to
urban settings is relatively new. The research on sustainable tourism has concentrated
on natural environments and protected areas, despite the fact that most of the world’s
International Journal of
population lives in urban areas and the majority of travel happens in cities (World Contemporary Hospitality
Tourism Organization, 1999). The market of urban tourism is rapidly expanding Management
Vol. 20 No. 4, 2008
(Paskeleva-Shapira, 2003). The favorable market conditions tempt many city planners pp. 445-461
to make the tourism and hospitality industry (hereinafter the industry) development an q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0959-6119
important part of urban policy. The growth of the industry in urban destinations DOI 10.1108/09596110810873543
IJCHM presents various challenges such as protection of environment, conservation of
20,4 heritage, preservation of social fabric and cultural values, and maintenance of a desired
quality of life for residents.
The development of tourism that is sustainable in economic, environmental, social
and cultural terms has been repeatedly recommended but researchers have found that
the management and implementation of sustainable tourism (ST) requires the
446 involvement of many partners, and that this collaboration between diverse stakeholders
is both complicated and difficult to achieve (Paskeleva-Shapira, 2001). Managing ST
requires interactions between the public sector (i.e. government bodies such as city
planners, transportation department, etc.), the private sector (tourism and hospitality
firms) and the local residents. This study aims to uncover the current interrelationships
of stakeholders representing three partners of ST development. Respondents in three
cities, representing diverse stakeholders from the industry, government and the
community, were examined as to their existing interconnectedness.
In the ensuing sections, stakeholder theory and the network perspective will be
discussed to provide a foundation for identifying critical stakeholders in destination
development. The network perspective helps determine whether identified critical
stakeholders have existing relationships with the other members of destination
networks. Having discussed the existing links among stakeholders from three clusters
and identified the critical stakeholders, the study concludes by questioning which
organization should take the lead in establishing stakeholder networks in sustainable
destination development.

Applying stakeholder and network perspectives to destination

development
Stakeholder perspective
Freeman, who introduced stakeholder theory to strategic management defined
“stakeholder” as “. . . any group or individual who can affect or who is affected by the
achievement of the organization’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984, p. 25). However, a
universally accepted stakeholder definition has not been constructed yet (Carroll, 1993).
Mitchell et al. (1997) reviewed stakeholder concepts, and analyzed the underlying
dimensions found in the various stakeholder definitions. This review found that power
and legitimacy are the core attributes of a stakeholder identification typology. In the
Mitchell et al. (1997) model, stakeholder salience is positively related to the cumulative
number of stakeholder attributes. Stakeholders who are perceived to possess one
attribute are less salient than those who possess two attributes. This finding emphasized
that stakeholders could vary from one issue to another issue. Accordingly, critical
stakeholders that hold legitimacy and have power over others in the process of
destination development could be different from (or same as) those involved for instance,
in destination marketing or product development efforts. Similarly, critical stakeholders
could vary from one destination to another. Accordingly, this study identifies the critical
actors in destination development by employing stakeholder approach.
The stakeholder framework allows a wider range of actors to be considered and
blended into urban tourism policy, and therefore has significant benefits for
sustainability. Many sustainable development situations, including tourism
development, are characterized by a complex web of interests and trade-offs
between interacting sets of diverse stakeholders.
Network perspective Managing
Three concepts are of vital importance in understanding social network analysis stakeholders
(SNA). “Nodes”, or “actors”, are entities, persons, organizations, or events. “Links” are
the relationships, of any kind, between the actors. Links have content (Cobb, 1988).
Links may be money transfers, communications, publications sent to subscribers,
friendships, exchange of resources like information, or overlapping memberships
(Tichy et al., 1979). Actors can be directly or indirectly linked, joined by multiple 447
relationships, or be separate. “Networks” are the patterns formed from the combination
of all the actors and links within the system. Networks have characteristics. For
example, networks may be “dense” (having many links) or “sparse” (having few links).
“Density” refers to the number of connections between actors within the network. It is
argued that highly dense networks result in efficient communication and enhanced
diffusion of norms across networks (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Another network
characteristic is “centrality”. Networks may have one central actor with links from
many actors directed to it, which indicates high network centrality, or a network may
have several groups and no central actor that indicates low network centrality. A
central position within the network indicates the amount of power obtained through
the structure, and capacity to access information and other members (Wasserman and
Faust, 1994). SNA is concerned with the structural positions (such as central, isolate,
bridging) of actors. If an actor has many links to others in the system, then it has
different network characteristics than an actor with fewer links within the system.
The goal of adapting the network perspective to tourism and hospitality industry
stems from the recognition that a destination is a system which consists of relations
that are likely to influence destination stakeholders’ opportunities, constraints,
behavior, or values. SNA is one of the tools that can be used to examine the links and
the potential influence of ties between members of destination stakeholders on many
issues including sustainable destination development. In this study “actors” are
stakeholders representing government, the industry and the community which are
identified as the partners of ST development by the World Tourism Organization
(WTO). The “link” is operationalized as having business contacts, and the content of
the link is joint tourism programs or projects. This link is selected to examine if
stakeholders representing three clusters have established ties and meaningful
networks in the system.
Centrality is one of the most popular measures used in SNA. There are various
measures of centrality (Freeman, 1979; Scott, 2000). Freeman (1979) operationalized
centrality by “degree”, “betweenness” and “closeness” measures. “Degree” based
centrality is simply the number of other actors to which the focal actor is tied
(Krackhardt, 1990; Freeman, 1979). Centrality then measures an actor’s involvement in
a network by revealing how many connections an actor has. It corresponds to being
well connected within its local environment (Scott, 2000). It can be computed for
in-degree centrality (which measures how many ties an actor receives) and out-degree
centrality (measures how many ties are made with other actors).
“Betweenness” centrality measures the frequency with which an actor falls on the
paths between pairs of other actors (Freeman, 1979). “Closeness” centrality defines an
actor’s ability to access independently all other members of the network (Freeman,
1979). It is a score calculated by measuring the extent to which an actor can most easily
reach others through the shortest number of jumps across the network.
IJCHM If an actor is connected to different members, it will have access to different
20,4 nonredundant sources of information (Krackhardt, 1990; Wasserman and Faust, 1994).
Scott (2000) defined these actors as “gatekeepers”, as they have potential for control over
others or facilitate exchanges between less central actors. In this study, these actors are
called “bridging” stakeholders as they can establish contacts between clusters.
Researchers have to decide which centrality measure is the most meaningful and
448 valid one for their research purposes. Freeman (1979) and others studied the empirical
performance of centrality measures under different research scenarios (Galaskiewicz
and Burt, 1991). Costenbader and Valente (2003) argued that the in-degree centrality
measure was less affected by sampling because, although respondents dropped from
the sample were no longer able to indicate their ties, they were still able to receive them.
Therefore, the current study uses in-degree based centrality to compute the most
meaningful centrality measure.

Tourism and hospitality industry applications

The network approach has been used in leisure and recreation (Stokowski, 1990, 1994;
Blackshaw and Long, 1998) and, tourism and hospitality (Cobb, 1988; Park, 1997;
Money, 2000; Pavlovich, 2001, 2003; Tyler and Dinan, 2001; Pforr, 2002, 2006) and in
event management (Larson, 2002; Stokes, 2004, Mackellar, 2006) to examine
interactions among actors, identify the actors in the network, or to examine the
function of the network as a whole.
Stakeholder theory has been applied as a planning and management tool (Sautter
and Leisen, 1999; Yuksel et al., 1999; Getz and Jamal, 1994; Robson and Robson, 1996;
Walsh et al., 2001; Jamal and Getz, 2000; Medeiros de Araujo and Bramwell, 1999), and
for stakeholder identification (Hardy and Beeton, 2001; Sheehan and Ritchie, 2005).
Recently, Sheehan and Ritchie applied stakeholder theory to assess destination
stakeholders from the perspective of DMOs and concluded that if these agencies were
to be re-conceptualized as destination management organizations it would require the
DMO to effectively build and manage stakeholder relationships. They specifically
called for a network approach “to create a picture of the connectedness of destination
stakeholders” and to test the hypothesis that “the DMO is the most central and most
connected actor in the network . . . ” (Sheehan and Ritchie, 2005, p. 731).
Accordingly, this study first examines the current interconnectedness of diverse
urban tourism stakeholders through a network lens and then analyzes the
connectedness of legitimate and powerful stakeholders of the industry in the
established destination networks.

Research design and methodology

A two-stage research design was employed. The first aimed to obtain detailed input
from selected interviews regarding critical stakeholders of urban destinations in the
context of ST and the challenges of ST in the context of urban destinations. The
interview process started with the key stakeholders such as the local DMOs, some hotel
managers, major tourist attractions’ managers, conference and convention centers’
managers and government agents responsible for tourism and/or economic
development. During the interviews, a snowball technique was employed to identify
other stakeholders who were considered to have relevant characteristics and valuable
information regarding the purposes of the study. This helped identify a more complete
web of legitimate stakeholders. The respondents not only included key stakeholders, Managing
but also their referrals. When the saturation point was reached, the interviewing stakeholders
process was finalized. In total, 38 interviews were conducted in three cities with diverse
stakeholders representing the industry, government and the community.
In the second stage, a structured questionnaire was developed to collect comparable
and quantifiable data in three cities. The self-completion, mail-back questionnaire was
developed to examine the existing stakeholder relationships and identify the critical 449
destination development stakeholders.
Network analysis principles and methods were utilized to construct a destination
network structure. Questions and analysis were adapted from Galaskiewicz (1979),
Tichy et al. (1979), Galaskiewicz and Shatin (1981), Knoke and Wood (1981), Cobb (1988),
Krackhardt (1990), Galaskiewicz and Burt (1991), and John and Cole (1998). To measure
current stakeholder interconnectedness, an existing link was queried. The standardized
stakeholder list was presented to respondents and they were asked to check off those
with which their organization had joint programs or projects in the last 12 months.
From responses to this question an “adjacency matrix” was constructed that
represents the relationships among destination stakeholders in the destination network
in each city. Specifically, by coding the presence (or absence) of a formal business
contact, a matrix where the stakeholders are both rows and columns was created. A “1”
stands for the presence of a formal business contact between stakeholder i and
stakeholder j, and a “0” indicates the lack of relationship. Constructed adjacency
matrices were entered into UCINET VI to compute the network measures and map
relations between the network members.
To identify the salient destination stakeholders that were particularly important for
destination development, the two major attributes of stakeholders, power and
legitimacy, were examined (Mitchell et al., 1997). The respondents indicated the critical
stakeholders on the standard list.

Sample cities
Three urban tourism destinations, Calgary (Alberta, Canada), Victoria (British
Columbia, Canada) and San Francisco (California, USA) were chosen for empirical
investigation. While a study of a single destination network would be instructive, a
comparison of three cities with varying tourism infrastructure and different planning
approaches yields more understanding.
The City of Calgary was the logical starting point, being the home city, but was also
notable in having a substantial tourism industry yet possessing no tourism policy or
plan. However, the city has substantial environmental programs developed by the
environmental management and community strategies departments at the City Hall.
The City of Victoria was selected because the annual report of the Tourism Victoria
indicated that the principles of sustainability were being applied in this urban area.
The primary reason in choosing San Francisco was the “Sustainability Plan for the
City of San Francisco” that had been developed by the municipal government. In 1996,
over 350 San Franciscans, community activists and people representing many city
government agencies, over 100 businesses, and academia gathered in working groups
and drafted a plan to achieve a sustainable society. In 1997, the goals and objectives of
the sustainability plan became policy of the City and County of San Francisco (www.
sustainable-city.org).
IJCHM A comparison of the major tourism-related features of these three urban
20,4 destinations is provided in Table I.

Data collection
Network analysis requires either the collection of data from all members, or the use of
450 samples (Scott, 2000). In the current research it became clear that it would be almost
impossible to achieve a complete census that would permit examination of all
relationships between stakeholders. There were a finite number of government
agencies to canvass, but a potentially huge and unreachable number of organizations
in the tourism industry and host environment clusters.
To examine existing destination stakeholder relations, a list of stakeholders was
developed a priori using sources such as World Tourism Organization (1993) and
major tourism textbooks. The list consisted of stakeholders from the industry,
government and the community. The alternative was to have a different list named by
every respondent, which might have resulted in some very incomplete answers.
Of the identified target population, a total of 578 (190 in Calgary, 195 in Victoria, and
193 in San Francisco) questionnaires were mailed to stakeholders representing three
partners of ST in the three cities. The surveys were mailed, with instructions that they
be completed by top management. To increase the response rate, non-respondents were
followed up according to the Dillman’s (1978) “total design method”. Two weeks after
the questionnaires were mailed to the respondents, a reminder postcard was sent,
followed by a re-mailing of the entire package to those stakeholders that did not
respond within three weeks. A total of 173 (70 respondents from Calgary, 62 from
Victoria, and 41 from San Francisco) returned surveys were useable.
Partly owing to the sampling design, a majority of responses came from one
stakeholder cluster – the tourism industry. Within that cluster there were fewer
respondents from tourism services or advertising, compared to accommodation and
attraction companies. Unfortunately, one key organization, the San Francisco
Convention and Visitors Bureau (SFCVB) did not respond to this study.
The exact numbers in each cluster are not critical to the network analysis, nor is it
essential that a sample be random. Redundancy in the sample ensures that
all-important links in the network are identified. Saturation is quickly reached,
although minor and peripheral linkages might be missed. Major inter-cluster linkages
are also revealed. Even though a key stakeholder did not respond, many other
respondents identified their links to the SFCVB. The in-degree measure that is used to
operationalize centrality enabled SFCVB to receive ties but they were no longer able to
indicate theirs. But, it is the overall structure and patterning of the network that is of
most interest.

Study findings and discussion

The maps of destination networks illustrate interconnectedness by identifying the
exact position of destination stakeholders in the tourism networks (Figures 1-3). In this
section, the existing structural positions of stakeholders – such as central, isolate, or
bridging – in each city are presented first and then, the connectedness of perceived
critical destination development stakeholders are discussed.
 Population DMO characteristics Lodging Major attractions No. of visitors (annual)

Calgary (www. Approx. 1 million Not-for-profit 11,100 (accommodation Calgary Stampede Nearly 5 million (2006)
tourismcalgary.com) (2006) association; city has one rooms) (2006) (annual event)
board position Business travel is
predominant
Gateway to the
Canadian Rockies
Victoria (www. Approx. 330,000 Not-for-profit 7,000 (accommodation Cultural attractions 3.5 million (Greater
tourismvictoria.com) (Greater Victoria – association; city has one rooms) (2006) Cruise port Victoria – 2006)
2006) board position Provincial capital
British heritage
San Francisco (www. Approx. 750,000 (2003) Not-for-profit; all 32,850 (hotel rooms) Major business and 15.8 million (2006)
sfcvb.org) business leaders (2006) leisure travel
destination
Gateway to wine
country
stakeholders
Managing

Comparison of the sample

cities
451

Table I.
IJCHM
20,4

452

Figure 1.
Calgary network
 Managing
stakeholders

453

Figure 2.
Victoria network
IJCHM
20,4

454

Figure 3.
San Francisco network
Network maps Managing
In Figure 1, Tourism Calgary (the local DMO) and cultural attractions are near the stakeholders
center of the network, closely surrounded by the travel trade, recreational operators,
car rentals, Calgary Airport Authority (CAA), tourism services, Calgary downtown
association, and hotels. Peripherally located in this network are local institutions,
Calgary Convention Center, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community
groups, B&Bs, natural attractions, motels, rail industry, and Calgary Economic 455
Development Authority.
The Victoria network map (Figure 2) illustrates that Tourism Victoria (the local
DMO), cultural attractions, hotels, motels, recreational operators and institutions were at
the center of the network, while Victoria Conference Center, NGOs, tourism services,
travel trade, and air carriers surrounded them. Also, Figure 2 shows there were no
relational ties (i.e. joint tourism business projects/programs) between, for example, cruise
companies and car rentals, or between B&Bs and the national tourism organization.
In San Francisco’s network (Figure 3), SFCVB, cultural and natural attractions, the
City of San Francisco, hotels and travel trade were at the center of the network;
Moscone Convention Centre, NGOs, recreational operators, entertainment
organizations, and the Chamber of Commerce surrounded them; transportation,
B&Bs, airport authority and institutions were at the periphery. The cruise stakeholder
group was an “isolate” in the San Francisco contact network.
Different patterns of relationships between destination stakeholders were identified
in the three cities. Although network maps displayed DMOs at the center of each
destination’s contact network, other stakeholders that were centrally located in each
city were different. This suggested that key destination stakeholders could be different
in each city and there is no one single network structure for destinations. Calgary has
fewer stakeholders located at the center. Meanwhile, Victoria had a more diverse group
of stakeholders located at the center of the network. A diverse group of stakeholders
would be better not only for representation and involvement of various groups’
interests, expectations and goals in sustainable tourism strategies and policies but also
to ease the challenges that might be faced during the implementation phase.
A second point concerns “who” these central stakeholders were in the networks.
The Calgary network showed that the CAA is one of the significant business partners
in Calgary. This idiosyncratic character of the Calgary network could be explained by
referring information collected through interviews conducted during the first stage of
this study. The CAA is highly involved in tourism and recognizes the importance of
establishing strong contacts with diverse tourism actors.
Victoria’s “inner circle” stakeholders included recreational operators, motels and
local institutions such as financial and consulting companies and the university, along
with the core urban tourism stakeholders such as Tourism Victoria, cultural
attractions and hotels. Interconnectedness of a diverse group of stakeholders reflects a
different character in Victoria. Unlike the other two cities, educational and financial
institutions were also among the central players in Victoria network.
It was also observed that, overall, the San Francisco network had fewer links. This
was partly related to the lower response rate. But, it could also reflect the unique
characteristic of stakeholder relationships in San Francisco. During the interview stage,
it was found that the relatively larger size of San Francisco’s tourism and hospitality
industry was perceived as one of the complexities of the industry. The concerns
IJCHM regarding the size of San Francisco’s tourism and hospitality industry complicated
20,4 establishing contacts to different sectors of the industry. There were very limited
relationships among destination stakeholders within and between clusters. With fewer
links, San Francisco network illustrated a more sparse network than Calgary and
Victoria networks. The local government authority also displayed a different
characteristic in San Francisco’s network. The respondents perceived government as a
456 key player in San Francisco. Although there is no known collaboration between the
industry members and the government other than the regular funding contract between
them this finding might be a result of the sustainability plan that might have positioned
the city as an active player in their environment.
The network maps that provide a summary of the relational ties are also considered
to reflect the basic structure of how the industry interactions in cities function. As will
be seen in the ensuing section, centrality within the network is not accidental, it is a
function of influence or power and it is accompanied by a high degree of perceived
legitimacy. Regardless of small variations that would occur as sampling methods and
response rates vary, results strongly suggest that the positions of stakeholders located
at the center of the networks will be relatively enduring, while the positions of those
peripherally located could be unstable.

Centrality
Network theory argues that structural position in the networks determines
stakeholders’ status or influence in the system. According to Cobb (1988) a
well-connected player in a network has a strategic advantage. Thus, higher centrality
stakeholders are able to manage information flows and influence others. By contrast,
an “isolate” may find itself without significant input, or unable to get timely
information about crucial decisions affecting tourism development.
According to the in-degree based centrality, DMOs were the stakeholders with the
highest centrality in the three cities. They had more contacts to other members of the
network than did the other stakeholders. High centrality measures give the local DMOs
advantaged positions. But the centrality of an actor in a network refers to more than
just interconnectivity, because there is power obtained through the network structure
(Krackhardt, 1990; Wasserman and Faust, 1994). The more the other stakeholders are
dependent upon the DMOs for what they need the more likely it becomes that
stakeholders will view the DMOs as being influential. Furthermore, other powerful
stakeholders become aligned with them. This, in turn, makes the DMOs appear even
more powerful and they could be considered “super powers”.
The other influential stakeholders in Calgary network were the provincial tourism
marketing organization and the hotels stakeholder groups. Having more ties with
hotels stakeholder group indicate that the destination is dependent on their product.
In Victoria, in addition to the local DMO, stakeholders had more ties with the
cultural attractions subsector. With such a strategic advantage, cultural attractions are
more likely to influence destination development in Victoria than other stakeholders.
A more diverse group of stakeholders has this strategic advantage to influence
destination development in San Francisco. The attractions sector included cultural
attractions, natural attractions and entertainment stakeholder group. Again, it is
observed that stakeholders with access to or possession of critical resources have the
highest centrality in the tourism network.
Critical destination development stakeholders Managing
The respondents in each city perceived DMOs to be appropriate, desirable or legitimate stakeholders
stakeholders for destination development. A total of 96 percent of respondents in
Calgary, 94 percent of respondents in Victoria and 93 percent respondents in San
Francisco indicated that their local DMOs should be included in destination
development. Furthermore, in each city, respondents in all three clusters identified
local DMOs to be legitimate. The attractions sector in each city was also perceived to 457
be legitimate. The government agents were the other legitimate stakeholders. In fact,
the findings from three urban destinations suggested that high centrality stakeholders
across destination networks were also perceived to hold high legitimacy degrees for
destination development. However, the results emphasized that DMOs had important
roles in destination development.
In terms of powerful destination stakeholders, the responses from three cities and all
three clusters showed similar results. About 97 and 83 percent of respondents
perceived their local tourism organizations to possess a “very high” and “high” degree
of power over others in destination development. The findings suggested that high
centrality destination stakeholders were also among the top five most powerful ones.
As the network theorists suggested, centrality did refer to power obtained through the
network’s structure (Barley et al., 1992). The empirical findings supported the
argument that high centrality stakeholders were perceived to have more influence than
those that were more peripheral.
Analysis also suggested that local governments’ involvement in destination
development is appropriate, since they are among the most powerful stakeholders. In
practice, the trend is toward decreasing levels of government involvement in tourism
(Swarbrooke, 1999). Tourism organizations are being privatized, and industry-led
organizations put emphasis on destination marketing rather than destination
development.
The hotel stakeholder group was also perceived to be a powerful player in
destination development by each cluster in each city. This could be because of the
influence they have over DMOs, which stems from their corporate status and financial
power. Furthermore, since hotels are the major contributors to the superstructure of
urban destinations, the destinations are dependent upon their product.

Conclusions and implications

The existing structural positions of stakeholders representing three diverse clusters of
ST development in three cities displayed that the stakeholders located at the center of
networks in the three cities were the DMOs. But, other stakeholders with high
centrality were different in each city. However, they were stakeholders with access to
or possession of critical resources. It is argued that since each destination faces a
different set of key stakeholders, the interactions would probably aggregate into
unique patterns of influences in each city. As a result, sustainable destination
development will be as unique as their historical patterns of development, the nature of
their industry, and governmental and institutional culture.
The study applied stakeholder perspective and identified the most important,
important and unimportant stakeholders for destination development in the tourism and
hospitality industry. The local DMOs are perceived to hold the greatest legitimacy and
have power over others regarding destination development. Therefore, it is the entity
IJCHM most likely to take active role in sustainable destination development. DMOs, as high
20,4 centrality destination stakeholders, could be key players in not only management but
also planning and development, and linking planners, investors, developers, residents,
local organizations, and the industry for developing a sustainable policy for their
destinations. The power of DMOs arises not only from holding a high central position
within the destination network, but also from the dependency of stakeholders on DMOs
458 for resources such as expertise, information, and clientele. DMOs have the most crucial
roles in achieving inter-stakeholder collaboration for developing a shared tourism policy,
particularly because the many and diverse industry actors trust or depend on them.
The other critical stakeholders in destination development were hotels, attractions,
and government agents. These critical stakeholders that had advantageous positions
in the structure of destination networks also have important decision-making roles,
and are key to understanding the circulation of ideas and decisions to act collectively,
particularly when the individuals are in different organizations. From this perspective,
the DMOs, hotels and attractions stakeholders can be used to communicate destination
planning and development issues, facilitate collaboration among stakeholders, increase
awareness of network members towards sustainability challenges, and coordinate
efforts toward reaching shared tourism and hospitality industry goals. In each city, all
of these influential stakeholders came from the industry cluster. This could be related
to the sampling but at same time highlights the lack of “bridges” between the clusters.
The DMOs, hotels and attractions stakeholders have another major role to play in
between-cluster networking. They must partner with the bridging stakeholders so that
contacts between clusters can be established. Establishing ties with less connected or
isolated stakeholders would help minimize the evident disconnect between clusters and
improve legitimacy for sustainable urban policy.
Destinations can no longer ignore various stakeholder concerns. On the contrary,
they are challenged to create a more participative model. According to network theory,
to create an environment in which collective action can be realized, more contacts have
to be established. Thus, there is a need for sustainability networks. The term
sustainability networks is used to indicate the interactions of multiple stakeholders
with varying degrees of interest in sustainable destination development. The
interconnectedness of diverse stakeholders representing governmental bodies,
business firms, persons or other entities on sustainability dimensions can improve
the process of sustainable destination development.
What would sustainable urban tourism actually look like? This research does not
provide the answer, and the various stakeholder goals and meanings attached to the
concept of SUT are to be discussed elsewhere. But the network analysis of urban tourism
stakeholders does strongly suggest that sustainability will only be perceived to exist as a
process, not a final product, in which all the major stakeholders participate as equals.
Exclusion of one or another important “voice” in this planning or policy-making process
will certainly result in dissention, while their formal collaboration will ensure that one
perspective does not completely dominate the discourse.
This study advances theory and practice in the area of urban tourism by empirically
identifying legitimate and powerful stakeholders that were critical in destination
development. This study also advances theory and practice in stakeholder research by
applying it in tourism destination development, and empirically testing the attributes
of urban destination stakeholders.
References Managing
Barley, S., Freeman, J. and Hybels, R. (1992), “Strategic alliances in commercial biotechnology”, stakeholders
in Nohria, N. and Eccles, R. (Eds), Networks and Organizations: Structure, Form, and
Action, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA.
Blackshaw, T. and Long, J. (1998), “A critical examination of the advantages of investigating
community and leisure from a social network perspective”, Leisure Studies, Vol. 17,
pp. 233-48. 459
Carroll, A.B. (1993), Business and Society, South-Western, Cincinnati, OH.
Cobb, M. (1988), “Influence and exchange networks among tourism oriented business in four
Michigan communities”, doctoral dissertation, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
MI.
Costenbader, E. and Valente, T.W. (2003), “The stability of centrality measures when networks
are sampled”, Social Networks, No. 25, pp. 283-307.
Dillmann, D.A. (1978), Mail and Telephone Surveys, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.
Freeman, E.R. (1984), Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Pitman, Boston, MA.
Freeman, L.C. (1979), “Centrality in social networks: I. Conceptual clarifications”, Social
Networks, Vol. 1, pp. 215-39.
Galaskiewicz, J. (1979), “The structure of community organizational networks”, Social Forces,
Vol. 57 No. 4, pp. 1346-64.
Galaskiewicz, J. and Burt, R.S. (1991), “Interorganization contagion in corporate philantrophy”,
Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 88-105.
Galaskiewicz, J. and Shatin, D. (1981), “Leadership and networking among neighborhood human
services”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 434-48.
Getz, D. and Jamal, T. (1994), “The environment-community symbiosis: a case for collaborative
tourism planning”, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 152-73.
Hardy, A.L. and Beeton, R.J.S. (2001), “Sustainable tourism or maintainable tourism: managing
resources for more than average outcomes”, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 9 No. 3,
pp. 168-92.
Jamal, T. and Getz, D. (2000), “Community roundtables for tourism related conflicts: the dialectics
of consensus and process structures”, in Bramwell, B. and Lane, B. (Eds), Tourism
Collaboration and Partnerships: Politics, Practice and Sustainability, Channel View
Publications, Clevedon.
John, P. and Cole, A. (1998), “Sociometric mapping techniques and the comparison of policy
networks: economic decision making in Leeds and Lille”, in Marsh, D. (Ed.), Comparing
Policy Networks, Open University Press, Buckingham.
Knoke, D. and Wood, J.R. (1981), Organize for Action: Commitment in Voluntary Associations,
Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.
Krackhardt, D. (1990), “Assessing the political landscape: structure, cognition and power in
organization”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 342-69.
Larson, M. (2002), “A political approach to relationship marketing: case study of the Storsjoyran
Festival”, International Journal of Tourism Research, Vol. 4, pp. 119-43.
Mackellar, J. (2006), “Conventions, festivals, and tourism: exploring the network that binds”,
Journal of Convention and Event Tourism, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 45-56.
Medeiros de Araujo, L. and Bramwell, B. (1999), “Stakeholder assessment and collaborative
tourism planning: the case of Brazil’s Costa Dourada project”, Journal of Sustainable
Tourism, Vol. 7 Nos 3/4, pp. 356-78.
IJCHM Meyer, J.W. and Rowan, B. (1977), “Institutional organizations: formal structures as myth and
ceremony”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 80, pp. 340-63.
20,4
Mitchell, R.K., Agle, B.R. and Wood, D.J. (1997), “Toward a theory of stakeholder identification
and salience: defining the principles of who and what really counts”, Academy of
Management Review, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 853-86.
Money, R.B. (2000), “Social networks and referrals in international organization buying of travel
460 services: the role of culture and location”, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism
Administration, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 27-48.
Park, K. (1997), “Understanding the social network structure of Korean older adults’ tourist
behavior: a preliminary step in tourism development”, doctoral dissertation, The
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
Paskeleva-Shapira, K. (2001), “Promoting partnership for effective governance of sustainable
urban tourism”, paper presented at the INTA International Seminar “Tourism in the City –
Opportunity for Regeneration and Development”, Turin, February.
Paskeleva-Shapira, K. (2003), “EU ‘SUT-Governance’ project final report”, available at: http://sut.
itas.fzk.de
Pavlovich, K. (2001), “The twin landscapes of Waitomo: tourism network and sustainability
through the Landcare Group”, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 9 No. 6, pp. 491-504.
Pavlovich, K. (2003), “The evolution and transformation of a tourism destination network: the
Waitomo Caves, New Zealand”, Tourism Management, Vol. 24, pp. 203-16.
Pforr, C. (2002), “The ‘makers and shakers’ of tourism policy in the northern territory of
Australia: a policy network analysis of actors and their relational constellations”, Journal
of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 134-50.
Pforr, C. (2006), “Tourism policy in the making: an Australian network study”, Annals of
Tourism Research, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 87-108.
Robson, J. and Robson, I. (1996), “From shareholders to stakeholders: critical issues for tourism
marketers”, Tourism Management, Vol. 17 No. 7, pp. 533-40.
Sautter, E.T. and Leisen, B. (1999), “Managing stakeholders: a tourism planning model”, Annals
of Tourism Research, Vol. 26, pp. 312-28.
Scott, J. (2000), Social Network Analysis: A Handbook, Sage, London.
Sheehan, L. and Ritchie, J.R.B. (2005), “Destination stakeholders: exploring identity and salience”,
Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 711-34.
Stokes, R. (2004), “A framework for the analysis of events-tourism knowledge networks”, Journal
of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 108-21.
Stokowski, P.A. (1990), “Extending the social groups model: social network analysis in recreation
research”, Leisure Science, Vol. 12, pp. 251-63.
Stokowski, P.A. (1994), Leisure in Society: A Network Structural Perspective, Mansell, London.
Swarbrooke, J. (1999), Sustainable Tourism Management, CABI Publishing, New York, NY.
Tichy, N., Tushman, M. and Fombrun, C. (1979), “Social network analysis for organizations”,
Academy of Management Review, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 507-19.
Tyler, D. and Dinan, C. (2001), “The role of interested groups in England’s emerging tourism
policy network”, Current Issues in Tourism, Vol. 4 Nos 2-4, pp. 210-52.
Walsh, J.A., Jamrozy, A. and Burr, S.W. (2001), “Sense of place as a component of sustainable
tourism marketing”, in McCool, S.F. and Moisey, R.N. (Eds), Tourism, Recreation and
Sustainability: Linking Culture and the Environment, CABI Publishing, Oxford.
Wasserman, S. and Faust, K. (1994), Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications, Managing
Cambridge, New York, NY.
World Tourism Organization (WTO) (1993), Sustainable Tourism Development Guide for Local
stakeholders
Planners, WTO, Madrid.
World Tourism Organization (WTO) (1999), Yearbook of Tourism Statistics, WTO, Madrid.
Yuksel, F., Bramwell, B. and Yuksel, A. (1999), “Stakeholder interviews and tourism planning at
Pamukkale”, Turkey, Tourism Management, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 351-60. 461
Corresponding author
Seldjan Timur can be contacted at: [email protected]

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints