ABSTRACT

Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) have been taking advantage of technologies in order to manage destinations in a more successful way. Previous research on tourism destination online platforms has proclaimed Destination Management Systems (DMSs) as their most advanced version, mostly by giving visitors the ability to accomplish most of their travel arrangements through a reliable official platform integrating several destination components. However, most of the academic research on DMSs is conceptual and/or lacks a holistic perspective of the functionalities that characterize such systems and does not provide an overview of the functionalities that differentiate these systems from more traditional DMOs’ web platforms. The present paper intends to contribute to fill these gaps, namely to identify the functionalities that differentiate these systems by confronting previous research that focuses on potential DMS functionalities with the results of an empirical study encompassing a content analysis of 23 DMS and interviews with both DMS’s developers and DMO officials. The findings suggest a considerable mismatch between the functionalities conveyed by existing DMSs and previous research either theoretical or empirical that rely on the analysis of few DMSs. The paper ends with conclusions and suggestions regarding the development of DMSs.

摘要

目的地管理组织（DMO）一直在利用技术来以更成功的方式管理目的地。先前对旅游目的地在线平台的研究宣称目的地管理系统（DMS）是其最高级的版本，主要是通过使游客能够通过集成了多个目的地组件的可靠官方平台来完成大部分旅行安排的能力。但是，有关DMS的大多数学术研究都是概念性的，并且/或者缺乏对此类系统的功能进行整体分析的观点，并且没有提供将这些系统与更传统的DMO的网络平台区分开的功能的概述。本文旨在弥补这些空白，也就是通过将以往的研究重点放在潜在的DMS功能上，并结合包括对23个DMS的内容分析以及与DMS开发人员和DMO官员进行的访谈在内的实证研究结果，找出区分这些系统的功能。研究结果表明，现有DMS所传达的功能与先前的研究（无论是理论上还是经验上的研究，都依赖于对少数DMS的分析）之间存在相当大的不匹配。本文最后提出了有关DMS开发的结论和建议。研究结果表明，现有DMS所传达的功能与先前的研究（无论是理论上还是经验上的研究，都依赖于对少数DMS的分析）之间存在相当大的不匹配。本文最后提出了有关DMS开发的结论和建议。研究结果表明，现有DMS所传达的功能与先前的研究（无论是理论上还是经验上的研究，都依赖于对少数DMS的分析）之间存在相当大的不匹配。本文最后提出了有关DMS开发的结论和建议。