What Is a Tourism Destination Network? Comparing Hyperlink Network Analysis Approaches for Governance

Tourism destinations are undergoing intertwined digital and sustainability transitions, shaped by complex multi-actor dynamics and public–private interdependencies. Governance is shifting from traditional top-down models to data-driven, network-based approaches that support shared decision-making and coordinated action. This evolution requires a comprehensive understanding of destination socio-technical systems. Amid growing data availability, publicly accessible and freely available data sources remain underexplored. Digital networks, particularly hyperlink networks, offer great potential for analysing the socio-technical structures of tourism destinations. Motivated by the need to support strategic governance, this study advances the methodological framework for analysing socio-technical systems in tourism destinations by comparing different approaches to Hyperlink Network Analysis (HNA). The study examines how key methodological choices, such as sampling strategy, boundary definition, and the varying online presence and identity of tourism actors, affect the quality and quantity of network data and its relevance to governance. We find that database-driven approaches can miss 97% of relevant actors and systematically exclude non-commercial stakeholders. This fundamentally undermines governance decisions based on incomplete networks. The study emphasises the need for tailored data collection approaches that integrate local knowledge, verify entities, and use digital tools to identify missing actors.