Identifying tourists as stakeholders in destination marketing cooperation: a case study in China

Abstract

Recent studies began to notice the significance of taking tourists into destination stakeholders, because the essence of destination is the primary place for tourist consumption. With empirical experience from a case study in Jing-Jin-Ji region, China, this paper classifies tourists' stakeholder type as Dominant Stakeholders in destination marketing cooperation within Mitchell's salience theory' typology according to their salience attributes of legitimacy and urgency. Then, to explore factors influencing the success of cooperation from tourist stakeholder's perspective, this paper analyzes tourist flow changes responding to the progress of destination marketing cooperation, and further understands these factors with the support of interviews with tourist's group and other critical stakeholders. Finally, three major factors are found including the priority of tourism industry to destination governments, the priority of tourism cooperation to destination marketing organizations, and involvement of tourism enterprises in cooperation.