Opinion and Consensus Dynamics in Tourism Digital Ecosystems

A tourism destination is a social network with a group of interacting stakeholders jointly producing the experience that the travellers consume. The harmonisation and coordination of stakeholders’ views and the development of a consensus-based strategy are essential elements for destination competitiveness and growth. Despite that, there is still scarce research aimed at analysing the mechanisms through which consensus can be achieved and how such a process can be assessed and monitored. This paper aims at contributing to fill this gap applying a spectral analysis to three destination networks with the objective of analysing the mechanisms through which information flows across the connections that link the different stakeholders and those that rule the establishment of a common opinion. Contributions to the body of knowledge and managerial implications are discussed and suggestions for further research are given.

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