Engaging Destination Stakeholders in the Digital Era. The best practice of Italian regional DMOs

This paper examines the under-investigated topic of how DMOs engage stakeholders in destination management and marketing through leverage on off-line tools, official destination websites and social media platforms. Building upon a significant body of literature and advances in quantitative and qualitative research, we provide three methodological tools: two scales assessing DMO stakeholder engagement off- and on-line and a social media index measuring tourist engagement. Our results confirm that in Italy regional DMOs are capitalizing on the digital platforms and off-line participatory tools to enhance stakeholder engagement in destinations’ decision-making. Theoretical and managerial implications for destination management in the digital era are suggested.