DISCUSIÓN Y CONCLUSIONES

As previously discussed, DMSs often arise from the initiative of public local, regional or national DMOs. Organisational factors are of special importance to the success of DMSs, namely (Frew & O’Connor, 1999; Mistilis & Daniele, 2004; Sigala, 2013; WTO, 2004; Boonstra & de Vries, 2005; Rodon, Pastor, Sesé & Christiaanse, 2008): the strategic orientation of the DMO, conflicting ideas on the role of the DMO, perceived costs and

benefits of DMSs, organisational readiness, relationships between organisations at the destination level and SMTEs trust in DMOs.

4.3.2.1 Strategic orientation of the DMO

According to Mistilis and Daniele (2004) private online commercial agencies are interested in selling individual products and may be “pushing” particular products based on revenues (e.g. commissions from suppliers) rather than the tourism development of a destination. Governments should establish standards and quality frameworks for the information provided in a DMS that private players are usually not able or inclined to consider (Mistilis & Daniele, 2004). However, as highlighted by both Ndou and Petti (2007) and the WTO’s 2004 survey on DMOs’ online practices (WTO, 2004), most DMOs do not have any kind of e-tourism strategy and only a few have managed to successfully implement a DMS.

Findings of Sigala’s (2013) nationwide study analysing factors affecting DMSs’ adoption in Greece suggest that the perceptions of destination actors about the DMO management practices are one of the most relevant determinants of DMSs’ adoption by destination stakeholders. In that study, the perceived managerial inefficiency and insufficient resources of DMOs were important inhibitors for DMSs’ adoption by private stakeholders. Likewise, Frew and O’Connor’s (1999) research aimed at assessing DMSs’ critical success factors also revealed that SMTE’s perceptions of DMOs as being bureaucratic and inefficient bodies are strong inhibitors of adoption. Thus, some main factors affecting DMSs’ implementation are related to the strategic orientation of the DMO. The lack of strategic orientation often leads to the DMOs inability to strengthen the competitiveness of the local industry, which is, in turn, one of the factors accounting for the inability to implement DMSs (Buhalis, 2003; Sigala, 2013).

4.3.2.2 Conflicting ideas on the role of the DMO

Since DMSs hold transactional capabilities, one of the most evident DMO-related barriers to DMSs’ implementation is that among both practitioners and academics, there is often the idea that DMOs are not carved to directly engage in commercial activities but should rather limit themselves to facilitate destinations’ success (Werthner & Ricci, 2004). Some authors suggest that the direct involvement of DMOs in transactional initiatives through DMSs may originate unfair competition between the public sphere and private actors that DMSs’

transactional abilities may replace (Sigala, 2013). Mistilis and Daniele’s (2004) suggestion that public DMOs should initiate DMSs’ development processes and eventually hand DMSs’ management to private players is far from being consensual, as the involvement and leadership of the public sector is often considered relevant in development and operation stages, namely to ensure the balance of needs of the main stakeholders (Frew & O’Connor, 1999).

4.3.2.3 Perceived costs and benefits of the DMS

Although Iacovou, Bensabat and Dexter’s (1995) qualitative analysis of seven IOISs case studies, concluded that overall perceived benefits have a moderate influence on IOISs’ adoption, it suggests that direct and immediate perceived benefits are more influential to IOISs’ adoption than long-term strategic indirect ones. This may be a constraint in a DMS context since its main role is to reshape the destination profile and value chain in the long term (Rita, 2000).

In order to be viable, DMSs must achieve sound financial performances. Hence, DMSs’ managers ought to implement an efficient revenue model which is, to a large extent, determined by DMSs’ type of ownership/management model. For example, the exclusively public nature of the DMS Visitbritain must have influenced the much-contested decision of not charging any commissions to organisations receiving bookings through the DMS’s booking engine (Guthrie, 2008). Hence, Visitbritain.com totally relies on its DMOs’ funding

sources. However, DMSs emerging from public-private partnerships often charge commissions, usually lower than those practiced by private intermediaries such as traditional tour operators (Kärcher & Alford, 2008).

According to Buhalis and Spada (2000) and Sigala (2013), SMTEs mistrust in DMSs’ cost effectiveness and the reluctance to pay a commission to adhere and retain DMSs’ membership inhibit DMSs’ adoption by SMTEs. Moreover, since most people do not perceive DMSs’ immediate benefits, public tourism organisations often suffer pressures to diminish or withdraw their funding efforts of such systems (Mistilis & Daniele, 2004). Shifts within the political power can also determine the lack of interest in initiatives of previous administrations - often adversary - and lead to the abandonment of DMSs’ development processes.

4.3.2.4 Organisational readiness of DMSs’ adopters

According to Horan and Frew (2007), DMSs are more likely to cater for the needs and interests of smaller businesses than traditional online distribution channels (Horan & Frew, 2007). Moreover, DMSs are also considered more beneficial to smaller businesses than to large companies (Buhalis, 2003), since most SMTEs do not possess the resources nor expertise to develop their own online distribution systems. However, SMTEs typically resist to the adoption of IOISs (Chwelos et al., 2001) or, specifically, DMSs (Sigala, 2013), either for lack of technological skills and resources or for scarce awareness of DMSs’ direct and indirect benefits.

Perhaps the most frequently identified factor negatively affecting DMSs’ implementation is the lack of innovation adoption by SMTEs. Hence, the usual inability to implement DMSs is often attributed to SMTEs lack of funds to invest in IT and to their inadequate technical human resources (Buhalis, 2003, Hornby, 2004).

4.3.2.5 Relationships between organisations at the destination level

Research has demonstrated that inter-organisational cooperation enhances destination competitiveness (Morrison, 1998). In order to prevent their marginalisation from Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and from larger tour operators’ packaged tours, Buhalis (2000) posits that destinations ought to develop ICT-based networking to assist their collaborative marketing strategies and to bring small suppliers and e-tourists together. One of the main differences between these systems and regular destination portals is that they are a network linking tourism actors, enabling them to obtain multiple benefits, such as sharing information and engaging in B2B e-business.

Besides the important contributions of DMSs in fostering inter-organisational collaboration at the destination level, Petti and Solazzo (2007) remark that some level of pre-existing communication and cooperation among organisations are required for a DMS to be successfully launched. This means that the existence (or not) of a network of relations at a certain destination, and especially its reach and cohesion, strongly determine the ability to implement a DMS aiming at strengthening that same network.

According to Gretzel and Fesenmaier (2004), the implementation of a DMS does not automatically foster, per se, knowledge creation between organisations. Rather, it is the social capital gained from the establishment of inter-organisational relationships based on trust that empowers organisations and leads to destination competitiveness (Gretzel &

Fesenmaier, 2004). Although Sigala’s (2013) extensive study on DMSs’ adoption by Greek tourism actors highlights that this process is influenced by intra-organisational and technological factors, its results reveal their secondary role and state that inter- organisational and collaboration issues are the most relevant in the decisions to adopt DMSs. Being DMOs pivotal organisations regarding DMSs’ implementation processes, the relationships between these predominantly public bodies and private companies is crucial to DMSs’ success.

4.3.2.6 SMTEs’ trust in the DMO

The lack of adhesion of SMTEs to DMSs may also result from the lack of trust of small organisations in the DMO’s capabilities to lead the destinations’ competitiveness efforts (Bédard et al., 2008). However, in some cases, negative attitudes of SMTEs’ owners may

not result from eventual DMOs’ inefficiencies, but rather from the typical mistrust of private entrepreneurs in public entities (Sigala, 2013).