Knowledge Management and Transfer in Tourism: An Italian Case

Tourism destinations have today a necessity to innovate and remain competitive in an increasingly global competitive environment. A pre-requisite for innovation is the understanding of how destinations source, share and use knowledge. This paper examines the nature of networks and how their analysis can shed light upon how destinations can share and benefit from knowledge as they strive to innovate and be competitive. The paper conceptualizes destinations as networks of connected organizations, both public and private, each of which can be considered as destination stakeholders. In network theory they represent the nodes within the system. The paper shows how epidemic diffusion models can act as an analogy for knowledge communication and transfer within a destination network. These models can be combined with other network analysis approaches to shed light on how destination networks operate, and how they can be optimized with policy intervention to deliver innovative and competitive destinations. The paper closes with a practical tourism example taken from the Italian destination of Elba. Using simulations the case demonstrates how the Elba network can be optimized. Overall this paper demonstrates the considerable utility of network analysis for tourism in delivering destination competitiveness.