Excellence in Tourism Destinations

In an environment of businesses globalisation and increasing international competitiveness, it seems like most tourism growing or mature destinations are trying to develop and implement strategies that shall ensure a clear orientation towards the satisfaction of the clients’ needs and expectations, ensuring at the same time a balanced management of the different resources, aims and interest present. The implementation of the integrated quality management in the tourism destinations while advocating a different view for the operation and the development of the sector and wanting the introduction of new approaches and methodologies, is accomplished through the setting of aims of cooperation, understanding of the needs and expectations of the visitors, setting of standards, collecting the visitors’ reactions, executing improvement actions and monitoring the results obtained. Besides these concerns, there is also the issue of the network of heterogeneous organisations in the public and private sectors that require interaction to efficiently and effectively meet the consumers’ needs and expectations, minimising the potential negative impacts on the potential negative sociocultural, economic and ecological impacts in the host community. The main research purpose of this chapter is to define an assessment methodology that allows the quantification of quality in the tourism destinations. This is based on an approach focused on the self-assessment process developed by the managers of the Destinations Management Organisations and other organisations, which, with more or less protagonism, monitor the integrated quality management in the tourism destinations. The chapter analyses the different phases and steps that must be the basis for the implementation of an integrated quality management process in the tourism destinations and proposes concrete ways of applying the methodology on the ground, in order to achieve the optimization of the satisfaction of the participants in the process of provision and consumption of tourist services, the valorisation of the tourism experience and the improvement of the competitive positioning of the tourism destinations.