Tourism Value Creation Architecture: Integrating OECD Priorities and TTDI for Sustainable Destination Competitiveness

Destination competitiveness is increasingly challenged by the need to reconcile economic performance and capital efficiency with strategic adaptability, environmental sustainability, social legitimacy and resilience. Recent policy developments, including the OECD’s 2026 emphasis on more balanced, sustainable and value-oriented tourism development reinforces the need to move beyond volume-driven approaches. This paper proposes a tourism value stack as an integrated architecture to operationalize this transition at DMMO level in order to bridge the persistent macro-to-micro execution gap between International diagnostic frameworks and local operational enforcement. It is comprised of six interrelated layers and is complemented by a double-loop feedback mechanism, through which performance outcomes, environmental, social conditions, stakeholder feedback and external changes inform strategic learning, assist capability development and promote subsequent optimal resource allocation. It denotes that destination competitiveness should be understood as the capacity to convert destination resources, capabilities and coordinated action into sustainable value which enhances, maintains and renews value. It builds on a previous value-based conceptual framework to develop an integrated architecture for sustainable and resilient destination competitiveness. The value stack architecture connects diagnostic destination conditions and capabilities of WEF-TTDI 2024 and contemporary policy direction of OECD 2026 with respect to strategy execution, performance management and adaptive governance, while sustainability and resilience operate as cross-cutting requirements supported by strategic and learning feedback loops. The paper's contribution is the development of an integrative and operational framework linking destination assets and capabilities to governance, strategic action, measurable economic (local value) and long-term resilience. The framework is illustrated through the Santorini island (Greece) case, to demonstrate how contemporary destination challenges can be analyzed and addressed through a coherent value-oriented architecture.