Peter Kvistgaard

Destination leadership and the issue of power

Purpose – Studies of destination management and leadership may over-emphasize unity and collaboration, thus producing romanticized accounts for such processes. This paper discusses destination leadership from a less romanticized perspective – pointing to the various ways in which it intertwines with power. Design/methodology/approach – The authors focus on the relationship between destination leadership and power networks offering a fresh look at the reality of collaborative processes in destinations. By exposing the latent or manifest networks of complex power relations in destinations, the authors disentangle the analysis of destination management and leadership from romanticized perspectives. A non-conventional vignettes approach is applied. Findings – The concept of power offers more realistic descriptions and “thick” conceptualizations of destination leadership. Moreover, the predominance of more inclusive and bottom-up approaches to destination development necessitates advances in understandings of ...