Managing DMOs through Storytelling: A Model Proposal for Network and Value Co-creation in Tourism

The rise of new business models based on shared content and experience has required tourism destinations to adopt appropriate tools for the construction and promotion of their identity based on sociality, emotions, interaction and connectivity. The aim of this paper is to analyse actors, actions, processes and relations related to the adoption and development of storytelling practices in tourism destination management, analysing critical aspects linked to the generation of content and the narration of territories. As an attempt to understand the processes of innovation and value-creation underlying the development of storytelling in destination management (“destination telling”), the Service Dominant Logic, and the actor-network theory interpretative framework have been adopted. The study was conducted following the qualitative methodology of multiple case studies. In view of the interviews and the analyses conducted, Destination Telling preconditions, contents, managerial criteria and outcomes have been identified, in reference to each of the three stages (“planning”, “narration” and “assessment”) the process has to be split. Finally, managerial implications for an involving construction and sharing of stories to happen have been examined and discussed.