Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
College/Unit
Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design
Department/Program/Center
Division of Forestry and Natural Resources
Abstract
Rural destination management organizations (DMOs) are faced with considerable challenges as they attempt to promote economic prosperity through tourism. This study sought to identify rural destination management challenges in Tucker County, West Virginia; identify the roles and activities of the destinations DMOs in addressing these challenges; and develop a perceived destination management framework. DMO challenges include maintaining authenticity and sense of place; economic diversification; seasonality, low wage jobs, and lack of employees; connecting resorts to small businesses and communities; and establishing a common vision, identity, and coordination of activities. While the majority of tourism literature calls for DMOs to play a dual marketing and management role, this paper makes an important contribution by identifying the need for a Convention and Visitors Bureau and a separate organization with a specific mission to sustainably develop and manage tourism and coordinate activities of the stakeholder network.
Digital Commons Citation
Arbogast, Doug; Deng, Jinyang; and Maumbe, Kudzayi, "DMOs and Rural Tourism: A Stakeholder Analysis the Case of Tucker County, West Virginia" (2017). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 1369.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/1369
Source Citation
Arbogast, D., Deng, J., & Maumbe, K. (2017). DMOs and Rural Tourism: A Stakeholder Analysis the Case of Tucker County, West Virginia. Sustainability, 9(10), 1813. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9101813
Comments
© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).