Destination Governance at Stake: Fostering Policy Coordination Among Decision-Makers of a Small Town

ABSTRACT

This research aims to foster small-town decision-makers’ awareness of policy coordination as a central issue in either implementing collaborative governance and designing tourism development policies. To this end, a System Dynamics-based Interactive Learning Environment (ILE) has been designed with the intent of challenging decision-makers to increase tourism in the small town, while managing trade-offs among individualistic vs. collaborative behaviour. The action research took place in Castelbuono, a small tourism destination in Sicily (Italy). Three major decision-makers were involved: the mayor of the town, the museum’s director, and a restaurant owner. The use of the ILE has enabled decision-makers to review their mental models and to understand interdependence among their strategies. The action research leads decision-makers to reflect upon the importance of collaborative governance for tourism destination as well as to manage small-town shared resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Destination Governance
• Planning and Development
• System Dynamics
• Action Research
• Interactive Learning Environment
• Simulation

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge many individuals whose collaboration was fundamental in the development of this study. Special thanks to Angelo Guerrera and Giovanni Scire’ for their support. Special acknowledgment goes to the Mayor of Castelbuono, the director of the “Museo Civico di Castelbuono”, and to the owners of “Palazzaccio” restaurant for their willingness to being part of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Vincenzo Vignieri http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4278-0765

Notes

1 Full model available via this link https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8gAy34QqxTtay01cjhTWkIwbWc, to read the model please download Stella player from iseesystem.com.

2 Each participant wrote his/her comments in an individual workbook.

3 In the field of system dynamics, positive and negative feedback processes are often described via causal loop diagrams that are maps of the cause and effect relationship between individual system variables that, when linked, form closed loops. The overall polarity of a feedback loop—that is, whether the loop itself is positive or negative—in a causal loop diagram is indicated by a symbol in its centre. A plus sign indicates a positive loop and defines a self-reinforcing process; a large minus sign indicates a negative loop and represents goal-seeking behaviour (see Sterman, 2000. Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World: Irwin/McGraw-Hill).