THE RELEVANCE OF DESTINATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS’ FUNCTIONALITIES: A MODEL BASED ON STAKEHOLDERS’ VIEW

ABSTRACT Destination Management Systems (DMSs) have proven relevant to destination competitiveness, namely to attract visitors and foster coordination of destination-based stakeholders. Previous research suggests that one reason explaining the success of DMSs is the ability to engage destination-based players in adopting these systems and in using its functionalities. Nevertheless, there is almost no research on factors explaining the importance that destination-based stakeholders assign to specific functionalities typically found in DMSs, neither on the factors that influence that importance. This research is especially important to design more useful DMSs and promote the use of these platforms. The present paper examines the factors influencing the relevance that stakeholders assign to several DMSs’ functionalities. The empirical study was performed in a Portuguese region – the NUTS II Center of Portugal. Results indicate that the importance given by stakeholders to DMSs’ functionalities is influenced by factors such as their perceptions on the destination’s readiness to adopt these systems, the perceived usefulness of DMSs and, in some cases, by the resources and strategic vision of their own organization, type of respondent, the stakeholders’ knowledge on DMOs’ platforms and affiliation to DMOs. However, the impact of the previously mentioned factors differs according to the kind of functionalities considered.