Stakeholders are of major importance for tourism destinations (Freeman, 1984) and play a decisive role in academic research. Stakeholder relationships are costly and time-consuming when extensive (Fung, 2015) but represent an imperative to ensure legitimacy and acceptance (Fung, 2015; Garrod, Fyall, Leask, & Reid, 2012). Stakeholder management literature highlights that managers should be aware of and consider the interests and expectations of stakeholders in strategic decisions (Byrd, 2007). In tourism destinations, leadership is often shared among a group of individuals (Pechlaner, Kozak, & Volgger, 2014).

Literature Review

Previous research highlighted the importance of tourism stakeholders (Komppula, 2016; Sheehan & Ritchie, 2005; Tuohino & Konu, 2014) and stakeholder management (Garrod et al., 2012; Khazaei, Elliot, & Joppe, 2015). Little discussion exists about the changing role of leaders over time and their role for stakeholder engagement. Leaders have the ability to affect the services offered and influence strategic orientation, thus stakeholder engagement. Leaders are those individuals who shape and influence the destination’s core services, strategic orientation and innovation capability (Koh, 2000). In this context, stakeholder engagement faces three major challenges: absence of leadership, lack of (elite) consensus on the modes of participation and limited power of stakeholder engagement (Fung, 2015). To conclude, more research is necessary to explore the role of leaders in facilitating stakeholder engagement (Soulard, Knollenberg, Boley, Perdue, & McGehee, 2018).

Research design

It builds on a tourism destination case study with semi-guided interviews (Flyvberg, 2011). A qualitative approach was chosen because limited empirical knowledge exists (Eisenhardt, 1989) and the demand for deeper insights legitimates qualitative research (Phillimore & Goodson, 2004).

Expected outcomes

This research addressed the nexus between leadership networks and stakeholder engagement. The findings of this study will shed light on existing networks of leaders and explores the processes of stakeholder engagement within a tourism destination.

The Olympic Winter Games (OWG) and the Paralympic Winter Games (PWG) are showcases for global sporting excellence. With their high dependence on specific weather conditions these Games have a long history of adaptations to cope with adverse weather conditions. Accelerating climate change poses a challenge to the future of these mega-events. Two key climatic indicators are used to assess the climate reliability of past host cities to hold the games in the future under a low (RCP 2.6) and high (RCP 8.5) greenhouse gas emission scenario. The results demonstrate that climate change will alter the geography of the Games over the twenty-first century. In a low emission scenario, only 13 of 21 locations remain climate reliable for the OWG in the 2050s and 12 in the 2080s, whereas only 10 are reliable for the PWG (both in the 2050s and 2080s). The impact of a business-as-usual high emission scenario is far greater, reducing the number of reliable OWG locations to 10 in the 2050s and 8 in the 2080s, with even fewer reliable for the PWG (8 in the 2050s and only 4 in the 2080s). Implications for the future of snow-based sports and adaptive responses are discussed.

Environmental factors, landscape and nature are considered core assets of most types of tourism and particularly rural tourism destinations. In alpine regions, the landscape is widely dominated by cultural landscape as a product of small scale alpine farming. Various studies indicate that the characteristic landscape as well as cultural and architectural features of so called “alpine pastures” play an essential role in satisfying the aesthetic expectations of tourists. The extensive farming practices furthermore provide ideal preconditions for tourism and recreation activities such as hiking, mountainbiking and skiing. Alpine pastures are furthermore a frequent theme for marketing campaigns throughout Alpine regions, showcasing not only the aesthetic components of this regional typical place, but also cultural aspects such as farming practices, food production or the relationship between animals and men. Although alpine pastures therefore play an important role for tourism, their number is constantly decreasing and the relationship between DMOs and farmers is prone to conflict when it comes to landuse.

This contribution discusses the relevance of alpine pastures for the alpine tourism product and addresses areas of conflict between alpine agriculture and tourism. Through presenting examples and best practises, it will be argued in how far DMOs need to strengthen their relationship with alpine agriculture and take responsibility for supporting the maintainance of alpine cultural landscape.

Mugla province is one of the popular destinations of Turkey. Fethiye district which is located in Mugla province is one of the famous resort destinations in Mugla province. Babadag mountain is in Fethiye, and it is one of the popular paragliding destinations in the world. This paper aims to apply MDIM which was empirically tested in Alpine mountain tourism destinations (Kuscer et al., 2017), in Babadag mountain paragliding destination. The purpose of this paper is to examine MDIM in a different non-European destination to comprehend the relationships between destination environments, innovativeness, and tourism development. The data have been collected by gathering the opinion of the stakeholders of the Babadag mountain paragliding destination. Results related to MDIM tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results may help Babadag mountain paragliding destination and similar destinations for adapting their responses regarding mountain tourism development.

The present study is a post event analysis of a small-scale sporting event to better understand the legacy and whether the residents' perception coincided or was similar to that of the event stakeholders. Stakeholders are important, even for small-scale events and above all, the management of stakeholders can make the difference and determine the success or failure of the event. Very often researchers take into consideration stakeholders that are favorable to the event and who have a primary role. Residents in many cases are not involved and therefore are often unfavorable to events (as in some cases of the Olympic Games bidding, where the majority vote no to referendums or where they were not even consulted). This work takes into consideration a small-scale event in a tourist area, the Junior Alpine Ski World Championships 2019 in Val di Fassa - ITA (JWC2019). This is a post-event analysis, which aims to investigate what the stakeholders want, and first and foremost the residents, with respect to the theme of events that can be perceived as a negative aspect for tourism. Through a mixed methodology that uses quantitative and qualitative data analysis, the study analyzes the long-term tourism approach and how a destination should move to guarantee sustainable tourism development, through the comprehension and commitment of the stakeholders involved in the events which must be involved in the event management process.

This study is an exploration of media stress as perceived by five Norwegian and 12 Austrian cyclists while participating at the UCI Road World Championship in their home countries. The focus in this qualitative investigation is on the relationship between athletes and the media. Junior cyclists were interviewed about their experiences with journalists and media coverage during this event. Additionally, data from observations and interviews with coaches and journalists were used. Results reveal that athletes perceived the media to be a stressor when adding the ‘home location’ to the event; this was particularly true for the Norwegian men due to the sport’s popularity in Norway. The massive attention, extra-curricular activities added by sponsors and the expectation of excelling ‘at home’, placed pressure on them. In contrast to Norway where the focus of the event was on showcasing Norwegian achievement in cycling, Austrian athletes were less stressed as the local organisers were more focused on promoting cycling tourism than on the competition. The investigation revealed a weakness in the management system of junior athletes, and this is a weakness in particular for the smaller federation with fewer specialist employees. Implications for policymakers in tourism are discussed, especially regarding event hosting policies