Keywords

1 Introduction

Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) play varying roles in shaping the digital ecosystem of tourist destinations, influenced by their surrounding economic, social, and cultural settings and different ways of adopting information and communication technologies (ICTs). Their interaction with the digital environment alters their roles in information dissemination, networking, and marketing, impacting destination technology adoption and reshaping business strategies. Understanding the diverse DMOs’ roles is needed for destination management and governance of digital transition. However, it is complex due to the need for multiple resources to gather and assess data from multiple stakeholders. This study seeks to explore these challenges using the Digital Business Ecosystem (DBE) framework, hyperlink network analysis, and webometrics.

2 Theoretical Framework

2.1 DMOs Within the Digital Business Ecosystem

Conceptualizing a tourist destination as an ecosystem facilitates a holistic approach to the analysis of DMOs’ roles, going beyond industry-specific insights and positioning them within a complex system of interconnected and interdependent actors. Like in a natural ecosystem, tourism “species” are embedded into the environment that is being shaped by the community of actors and shapes it (e.g., geographic, economic, cultural, political, and technological environments).

A tourist destination is a business ecosystem, or an economic community of interrelated and interacting organizations and individuals who create valuable goods and services [1, 2]. This system encompasses diverse entities such as suppliers, customers, competitors, and other stakeholders interacting to provide value, among which DMOs are the key players facilitating connections within and between destinations [3].

With ICTs becoming more central to tourism operations, the digital environment has taken on greater significance in the tourism ecosystem, what got reflected in the term “Digital Business Ecosystem” (DBE) [1]. According to Baggio [1] and Nachira et al. [4], a DBE is a business ecosystem enhanced by a technological infrastructure that provides a digital environment for varying interconnected tourism stakeholders and houses diverse digital objects. These entities, termed “digital species,” range from software and services to knowledge and are decipherable by humans (e.g., software, services, knowledge). A DBE denotes a blend of socio-economic and technical elements which include real-world participants, digital entities, and underlying technology. In a DBE, tourism stakeholders have both a physical component and a technological representation, such as websites. These two facets co-evolve and merge, resulting in a unified complex entity [1, 4]. Thus, examining digital representations of tourism stakeholders provides insight into both a dimension of the digital ecosystem and the online-offline processes of tourist destinations’ digital transformation.

2.2 Interorganizational Hyperlink Networks

Being pivotal tools for conducting business in the tourism industry, organizational websites stand out as digital representations. Specifically, DMO websites serve as central points for sharing information with tourists and discovering destination actors [5]. As key digital representations coupled with the economic entities they stand for, organizational websites serve as a proxy for DMOs as complex online-offline entities in the DBE. Hyperlinks connecting interorganizational websites are valuable proxies for offline relations and essential tools of digital networks, facilitating online visibility [6, 7].

Past tourism research has observed differences in link intensities and preferences across tourism sectors [7, 8]. In particular, DMOs’ linking strategies differ based on cultural variations between societies [5]. Most studies analyze the general hyperlink structure of online tourism networks, overlooking specific focus on DMOs and their ties to the broader Web. Given the diverse online embeddedness of tourism actors in different settings, DMOs may have varying roles in tourist destinations undergoing distinct digital transitions.

3 Methodology

This study examines the roles of DMOs in Gipuzkoa province, Spain, where the capital, Donostia/San Sebastian, is recognized as a Smart Destination. A convenience sample was used due to the difficulties of acquiring a random sample. The initial entities were chosen based on their accessibility, which facilitated an exploratory study. DMOs were analyzed within the ecosystem of other tourism sectors: accommodations (57%), public bodies (13.3%), travel agencies (10%), sports and recreational activities (9.3%), nature and cultural resources (7.6%), and DMOs (2.8%) (N = 670). Organizational websites of tourism actors were analyzed as the online destination network (ODN), utilizing the web crawler Hyphe [9] in April 2023. This revealed over 36,000 websites linked to the ODN via over 47,000 connections, termed the discovered digital ecosystem (DDE). Further ODN connectivity data was sourced from Ahrefs.com. Key players in the DDE (those with 5+ connections from the ODN, n = 447) were categorized to identify ICT actors (n = 101, e.g., Google.com, Apple.com, Instagram.com). Additionally, DMOs based in Donostia were classified as central, while those outside the Smart Destination were labelled as peripheral. The study used hyperlink network analysis, webometric techniques, and statistical evaluations.

4 Results

DMOs were highly active in establishing connections, having a significantly higher average number of connections than other tourism sectors and leading in both incoming and outgoing links in the ODN (Table 1, Fig. 1). First, on average, DMOs placed more links within and outside the ODN, behaving as connectors of digital ecosystem objects. Notably, they bridged actors otherwise unconnected to the ODN. Second, DMOs had the highest average number of links from other network stakeholders, indicating their visibility, recognition, and authority within the ODN. Only public bodies neared their link-attracting power. Importantly, central DMOs were notably more active connectors than peripheral ones (Table 1).

For DMOs, more links placed within the ODN correlated with more links received from the ODN members (r = .959, p < 0.01), meaning that their connecting activity was associated with recognition by other tourism actors. In contrast, other sectors showed only a moderate correlation between placing and receiving links (r = .461, p < 0.01). Moreover, a strong correlation existed between DMOs’ links placed outside the ODN and those received within it (r = .817, p < 0.01). This indicates that DMOs’ linking both within and outside the ODN was related to the recognition from the network members.

DMOs recognition within the ODN was closely tied to their estimated monthly web traffic (r = .819, p < 0.01), meaning that having links from other network members was associated with more visitors to their websites. Moreover, any DMOs link-placing – within and outside the network – was strongly positively associated with the web traffic (r = .879, p < 0.01; r = .970, p < 0.01, correspondingly). Neither of these relations was true for other tourism actors. Likely, the quality of DMOs’ connections influenced this higher traffic, as their traffic was closely related to Domain Rating – a measure that considers the quality, not just quantity, of links (r = .671, p < 0.01 for DMOs; r = .302, p < 0.01 for others). Importantly, DMOs were also notable by the average number of links to ICT actors and the variety of ICT actors they connect to (Table 1).

DMOs were distributed around the network’s core, dominated by diverse ICT actors (Fig. 1). DMOs were placed in between businesses (accommodations, sports and recreational activities, and travel agencies) and public bodies. Their location was akin to nature and cultural resources, also related to the public domain. DMOs occupied the position of mediators, being on the path connecting varying tourism sectors, further underscored by their high betweenness centrality (Table 1). Notably, central DMOs surpassed peripheral DMOs in average betweenness centrality (Table 1).

Table 1. Connecting activity of DMOs compared to other stakeholders of the tourist destination and between varying types of DMOs
Full size table
Fig. 1.
figure 1

DMOs in the Digital Business Ecosystem. Left: The ODN of tourism actors (n = 579) without isolated nodes (n = 91, 14%). The size of nodes is proportional to the number of connections within the network (in- and out-links). Right: The core of a tourist destination ecosystem. The size of nodes is proportional to the number of in-links (significance for tourism actors). Colors: DMOs; public bodies; nature and cultural resources; accommodations; sports and recreational activities; travel agencies; ICTs; unidentified. Visualized in Gephi 0.10.1.

Full size image

5 Conclusions

The study provides a fresh perspective on DMOs’ roles in tourist destinations by integrating the DBE framework, hyperlink network analysis, and webometrics. DMOs have distinct roles in shaping and maintaining the DBE compared to other tourism sectors. Also, the roles vary between different DMOs with different proximity to the Smart Destination. DMOs act as key connectors and mediators in destinations, increasing link density, integrating actors into the stakeholder network, and facilitating connections among diverse stakeholders. The study indicates the importance of DMOs’ links to other tourism actors, their incorporation into the broader Web, and the quantity and variety of connections with ICT actors in attracting visitors to their websites.

While the study is not representative of the broader population and only partially depicts the multi-dimensional online-offline roles of DMOs, it still enriches our grasp of DMOs’ contributions within the complex system of a tourist destination. However, further comparative research is needed to provide more insights for digital transition and destination management. This entails evaluating destinations with diverse technology adoption levels, various digital transition strategies, and distinct socio-economic contexts. Continued categorization of stakeholders in the digital ecosystem is essential, as is the identification of diverse ICT actors and their ties to the ODN.