Destination Development in the United States: Emergence and Futures

An emerging group of services and activities provided by some State Tourism Offices (STO) called Destination Development (DDev) programs coincides with a growing practitioner shift from promotion to tourism product development. These programs are largely unexplored models for how STO and local destinations might effectively collaborate to create and manage sustainable tourism destinations. Local communities are the innate touchpoint of tourism experiences and the scale at which most negative impacts of tourism naturally occur. Yet many communities lack resources, expertise, and capacity to endogenously plan, develop, and manage sustainable tourism destinations, which creates a need for external actor involvement—involvement that creates equity and power concerns. State organizations are well-positioned to provide accountable support, but little is known about what STOs can do to best catalyze, facilitate, and support sustainable community destinations. Are DDev Programs the key? To better understand the concept and design of DDev programs, as well as the precise role they play in supporting community destination success, an exploratory case study of four US State Tourism Offices that operate DDev Programs was conducted via purposive, in-depth interviews. Themes within and between the cases were identified, and it was discovered that DDev programming largely emerged from the field of rural development; is positioned as a key complement to destination marketing; and has engendered a highly collaborative community of practice that desires greater structure and professional support.