Comprehending Small Tourism Businesses’ Network and Knowledge Dynamics

Within the tourism sector small tourism businesses are identified as key players due to their numerical superiority and their often individual and niche products and services which contribute to the diversity of the total tourism experience. The notion of collaboration among public and private tourism actors is often seen as particularly useful for small tourism businesses as it creates possibilities for utilising their often limited resources to the fullest enabling them to compete more efficiently in the tourism marked. However, in order for tourism policy makers (destination management organisations (DMOs), municipalities, regional development organisation etc.) to develop tourist destination and whole regions successfully it is important that they have an understanding of these small tourism businesses’ collaborative activities, knowledge use and transfer, impediments, motivations, values and goals as they represent the bulk of the private tourism actors, potentially having a pivotal influence on the development and implementation of the destination’s and region’s tourism planning programs, for instance the development of all-year tourism which is the case of North Jutland.

A case study approach will be applied focussing on the DMO Best of Denmark in North Jutland, Denmark and the DMO of South Devon, Devon, UK and their attempts to develop all-year tourism. Thus, the overall aim of the dissertation is to investigate and illuminate what drives and/or hamper destination development, focusing specially on small tourism businesses’ network and knowledge interactions.

• What are the general and specific all-year tourism development collaboration links and knowledge interactions of small tourism businesses that are members of a public/private destination management organisation – both within and outside the organisation?

• What challenges occur between public/private destination management organisation actors when collaborating on the development of all-year tourism?

The purpose of the dissertation is to contribute with concrete empirical evidence on what drives small tourism businesses, how they interact with respect to collaboration and knowledge sharing with both public and private actors, adding to the understanding of small tourism businesses’ networks, alliances and collaboration patterns. Hereby clarifying how tourism they position themselves as enterprises within the tourism sector, their attitudes towards knowledge sharing and with whom and to what extend knowledge is transferred and created both within and outside DMO boundaries.

Hopefully this research will benefit the academic research environment by contributing with empirical evidence of small tourism businesses’ network and knowledge interactions. Furthermore, private and especially public tourism actors will hopefully benefit in relation to tourism policy making as the research will contribute to a broader understanding of small tourism businesses which can be incorporated into the strategic policy agendas thereby improving the conditions for successful tourist destination development.