Tourism destination and the role of trust

Abstract

Tourism destinations increasingly pose new challenges to the organizational and management aspects of tourism. The non-cooperative behavior of some companies, the difficulties of sharing a system of values, the absence or inadequacy of destination managers keep some destinations off the map of growth that is sought for by the stakeholders and shareholders of a given resort. This difficulty seems to lie in the scarce knowledge of the system of relations existing between firms and their degree of cooperation. The application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and some indicators for network analysis provides a clearer and more analytical map of the links between tourism businesses located within a destination. It was decided to apply SNA to the tourism destination of San Vito Lo Capo (Sicily), whose development has been spontaneous and neither directly linked to specific tourism policies nor accelerated by agents outside the system. The network of commercial relations between enterprises and even family ties existing at this resort were analyzed in an effort to understand how each is implicitly linked to the other. The results show the existence of a cluster of commercial ties and family ties centered on three sub-groups of enterprises in which there is a family structure that ensures a climate of mutual trust and cooperation. Furthermore, it appears that two enterprises within the three sub-groups play the role of mediators of relations among the enterprises of the resort, as these have been recognized as system leaders. Therefore, the presence of a widespread system of trust, based on rules and behaviors resulting from a formal agreement or underlying bonds of kinship, contributes to the social or cultural capital of a tourism destination. The presence of this element among firms strengthens the network, boosting the performance of the destination and ensuring systemic and shared management.