Tourism Cluster Management in Cross-border Destinations

Abstract

Tourism clusters across borders are more commonly referred to as cross-border partnerships, or simply cross-border destinations. The literature has identified many potential threats to the development and consolidation of transboundary structures, such as peripherality, methodological nationalism, the symmetrical/asymmetrical development of neighbouring borderlands, and the lack of cross-border tourism planning and policy-making. However, these can be overcome through close cross-border collaboration in partnerships. The authors focus on the evolution of cross-border cooperation and integration over time, with particular attention devoted to the effectiveness of cross-border tourism clusters as managerial structures, once the creation phase has been successfully achieved. To exemplify these ideas, the history of recent tourism partnering and clustering attempts in the cross-border Cerdanya Valley in the Catalan Pyrenees is presented and analysed. Results show the importance of cluster management practices, beyond cluster development, in order to consolidate sustainable and long-lasting cross-border tourism partnerships and clusters.