Evaluating the performance of destination marketing systems (DMS): stakeholder perspective

Destination marketing systems (DMS) represent a vital inter-organisational information system (IOIS) for supporting the collaborative e-marketing strategies of tourism firms and the competitiveness of tourism destinations. However, many DMS have failed to deliver the expected outcomes, while the performance measurement of DMS has not been thoroughly investigated in the literature so far. The study synthesises research from the fields of DMS, IOIS and collaborative practices for investigating the perceptions of various tourism DMS stakeholders about the evaluation of DMS performance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study conducted a nation-wide survey for measuring the perceptions of various tourism DMS stakeholders in Greece about the importance of the roles that DMS should serve as well as the items that should be used for measuring the performance of these DMS’ roles.

The findings showed that the public and private stakeholders held different perceptions about the roles of DMS as well as about the metrics that need to be used for evaluating DMS performance. The findings also showed that the perceptions that stakeholders hold about the roles of the DMS influence their perceptions about the performance evaluation of DMS.

The findings are based on evaluating a specific type of IOIS and sector/context. Thus, caution is required in generalising the results to other types of IOIS and social/environmental contexts.

The study highlighted that the performance and success of DMS, and of IOIS projects in general, require the nurturing of a collaborative culture and the co-ordination of the various stakeholders’ perceptions and interests.

The study addresses the gap in DMS performance evaluation and it contributes to the literature about IOIS evaluation by adopting a stakeholders approach.