Leadership in Destination Management: Its Implications in a Systemic Approach

Abstract

This paper aims at understanding the existing links between leadership and governance in destinations. The research emphasizes the process through which a subject becomes a pivotal actor in a systemic approach. Once the pivotal actor is legitimated, it is important to verify the relationship between successful leadership and governance choices and configurations. The research uses a comparative case study analysis on destinations in which one specificactor—that can be entirely public, public-private or totally private—assumes the leadership in order to define the strategic orientation of the local actors and to coordinate them in order to promote destination development. This research clarifies the main steps that can legitimate a pivotal subject in a destination and the main leadership’s governing choices that allow to manage a destination in a systemic approach. The paper tries to single out and define the links between leadership and governance choices, in order to get to the main aspects of destination management leadership at both a systemic and an individual level of analysis.