Implementation of Lean Techniques in Destination Management Organizations

Abstract

The competitive environment increasingly forces tourism organizations to review, restructure and redirect activities in order to gain competitive advantage in the conditions of a sustainable tourism development. The concept of Lean Management, as a new philosophy, successfully applied in the field of increasing production’s efficiency, can be developed and implemented in services, tourism and hospitality as well as in tourism destination management organizations. On this project, a new methodology for tourism destination management is developed, based on Lean Management principles. Throughout a new approach, the research carried out in this study offers opportunities to increase the competitiveness of the tourism and hospitality industry by improving the management system and, implicitly, an efficient use of the tourism resources, increasing productivity and satisfying customer requirements by offering services and products with higher added value. By efficiently applying Lean tools and techniques, we rethink the system, we control and improve processes in the value chain in order to increase the performance. Therefore, we will create a user-oriented and interactive support framework that can be used by management to streamline the activity and the operations of the management organizations for the tourist destinations.