Conceptual tools for evaluating tourism partnerships

Network and stakeholder analyses in tourism studies typically offer schema, typologies, and frameworks that contribute to the conceptual development of the subject area. What has been lacking is the managerial application of network research in tourism. This paper offers a method for investigating and conceptualising network relationships in a regional tourism district. The fieldwork was undertaken in the Australian wine region of the Hunter Valley. The findings are analysed using four different approaches to the conceptualisation and classification of interorganisational relationships in a tourism region: (1) the application of a value net to the region’s stakeholders, (2) the generation of a partnership-activities matrix, (3) an ecological approach using Budowski’s (Budowski, G., 1976. Tourism and conservation: conflict, coexistence or symbiosis. Environmental Conservation, 3(1), 27–31.) typology and (4) by identifying the competition for scarce resources among tourism stakeholders. Managerial implications for each approach are described.