Turisme i Esport i creació de xarxes ONIT – UdG

Generation of cohesive social networks in Sports Tourism Destinations – Banyoles

as a case study
Oriol Sallent i Bonaventuraa , Ramon Palau i Saumellb and Jaume Guia i Julbec
a
ONIT Research Group, Girona, Catalonia; bONIT Research Group, Girona, Catalonia,
c
ONIT Research Group, Girona, Catalonia
(Received 1 november 2009)

Special Interest Tourism (like culture, sports or gastronomy) as an avenue for local
development has generated a high variety of entrepreneurial initiatives, tourist products
and policy plans. Evaluation of these schemes’ outcomes is normally measured in
economic or social (labour) figures. But in a long term strategic view, the creation and
strengthen of networks with subjects within the community should be of a first priority.
In Catalonia, the national tourist body (CTB) has created the Sports Tourism
Destination (STD), a label that certificates locations that fulfil all requirements the CTB
consider necessary for a competitive sport training and competing location. Destinations
interested in adhering to this initiative have to create different entities that with sport
clubs, sport retailers and other stakeholders, usually not involved in the tourism
destination management. Is this an effective tool to create new sport tourism networks
that thrives marketing opportunities and local development, or is just a bureaucratic
requisite without any further consequence?
This communication illustrates a study on how two tourist destinations are engendering,
or not, sport tourism networks after being certified. Through semi-structured interviews
and archive data research, we analyze the different “multidimensional embedded
network ties” (Hite, 2003) within the involved stakeholders with the aim of evaluating
the community participation and the network strength. The method and theoretical
process can be relevant to other special interest tourism as mentioned above.
Keywords: sports tourism, social network analysis, tourism destination management,
cohesive networks, Catalan Tourist Board policy

Introduction
“As destination competitiveness becomes increasingly critical in the global economy, so
does the focus on understanding how collective interorganisational relationships and
partnerships are formed and managed, and how they evolve over time”(Pavlovich,
2003:215). This is especially important if the most strategic goal is to foster local
development. In that case, the consolidation of networks is essential, since a group of
interacting bodies in a community (for example, a tourism destination) that establishes a
specific and creative relationships with their environment and with the regional
networks, can create territoriality added value(Dematteis & Governa, 2005).
Most of the studies in the extensive body on tourism destinations has focused on
studying destination image and characteristics from a specific destination perspective
(Shih, 2006), and comparatively little attention has been given to the network structure
of these destinations. In the case of sports tourism, the involvement of sport clubs, sport
shops and other sport stakeholders, bring about a shift to community study which goes
beyond the tourist destination. Although there is a certain interest in the study of
partnership in sports tourism (M. Weed & Bull, 2009), Snape and Stewart (cited by
(Webb, 2005:138)) state that ”in overall terms there has been a greater emphasis
placed on establishing partnership processes without measurement of the quantifiable
outputs”.

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If partnerships are the key to achieving sustainability, then “it is imperative that
partners learn to avoid the inertial impediments and improve the odds of success”
(Gray, 2007:30) and moreover, that we can evaluate the evolution of such a network.
But neither one, nor the other is an easy task. Many factors can obstruct partnership like
past history of mistrust, differential framing of issues and other process and institutional
issues (Gray, 2007) and, moreover, “tourism destination networks are amongst the
most complex dynamical systems, involving a myriad of human-made and natural
resources” (da Fontoura Costa & Baggio, 2009:4286).
This paper is based on the belief that an analysis of the structure of a network of actors
provides useful information on the competitiveness of a destination (Scott, Cooper, &
Baggio, 2008) and that cohesive network structure of destinations is an important
element in the effectiveness of schemes and policies (Pavlovich, 2003). Therefore, this
pattern is of strategic relevance for a destination and authorities should nurture
relationships using communication and sharing of information because, as expressed by
Scott, Cooper & Baggio, “by defining this cohesiveness, the organization of tourism will
be better understood and directions for the improvement of communication efficiency
identified” (2008:176).
.
With the aim of showing a methodology to describe cohesive network generation, a
particular sport tourism project from the Catalan Tourist Board has been analysed.
Thus, this paper draws on literature on ties, partnerships and tourism destination to
provide an analytic framework. First it is discussed the most important sport tourism
and network analysis concepts before developing a description of the Sports Tourism
Destination (STD) policy from the Catalan Tourist Board (CTB). It then makes use of
qualitative data based in a study on different Catalan STD’s to examine how this
initiative foster partnership and consolidated sport and tourism, private, non commercial
and public networks. This analysis provides the means to make a first conclusion that
would need further research, which can be important in the investigation of the
structural cohesiveness of destinations against a background of shifting organizational
structures for tourism in Catalonia.

Sports tourism
Definition
We consider Sport Tourism as all forms of active and passive involvement in sporting
activity, participated in casually or in an organized way for non-commercial or
business/commercial reasons, that necessitate travel away from home and work locality
(Standeven & de Knop, 1999:12). This is a relative new field of research but that has
exploded in research and publications (M. Weed, 2009). Two different kind of sports
tourism offer can be found in the market: The Active Tourism, where recreational sports
activity is the base of the product (horse riding excursions, rafting or ski resorts) and
specifically Sportive Tourism, based in the competition side of physical activity (sport
events for participants and spectators or training products and facilities for abroad teams
and sports individuals) (Sallent, 2008). Both strategies have been frequently encouraged
as avenue to generate local development.
There has been little research on the direct relation of sport tourism and local
development, and from this, mostly on the importance that sports have in the tourism
economic process (Higham, 2005; Hinch & Higham, 2004).

Theory of networks

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The theory of networks is centred in the complex world of relationships between

people, groups and communities. A social network is a structure made of nodes (usually
individuals or organisations) connected by one ore more kind of ties. A network is
generally defined by a specific type of relation linking a defined set of persons, objects,
or events and thus, “the properties of those networks studied by academics have to do
with the structure of these relations” (Scott, Baggio, & Cooper, 2008:1).
Networks can be shaped by a group of actors that are studied as interdependent more
than as independent and autonomous unities (Wasserman & Galaskiewicz, 1994:xiii).
Apart from individuals, groups or organizations, these actors can be corporations,
countries, social entities, tourism destinations, etc.

The second aspect to study in networks is ties within subjects. The relational ties within
different actors are “channels to transfer resources (either materials, like money or
immaterial like information, political support, friendship or respect)” (Wasserman &
Galaskiewicz, 1994:xiii).
We can differentiate two approaches into the study of ties. The first one is trying to
establish the cohesiveness and efficiency of ties and is particularly attentive to the
structure of networks. In her complete study on relations in business, Julie Hite (2003)
presents a multidimensional taxonomy of the different features a relation within two
subjects can have. From a certain relation (personal, competency – economic and
hollow – social) every new dimension or combination causes a new complexity level:
the bidimensional embeddedness (functional – economic and social, isolated – personal
and economic, latent – personal and social) to the full embeddedness.
The second approach is engaged in studying hiperconnectivity and evaluates innovation
and creativity in social networks, based on the external relations with other nodes or
networks they generate. For this field of research it is of a high importance the
classification of Mark Granovetter based in the transmission of information within
social networks. Granovetter (1973)(1985) identifies two groupings of network
relations: ‘strong ties’ that an actor has with others within a linked group, and ‘weak
ties’ that an actor has with others in external groups. Strong ties are formed by clusters
of people in congruent and strong relationships, with each person knowing what the
other knows. (Pavlovich, 2003), that’s why they are long term ties based in confidence
and collaboration within the different actors. On the other side, ‘Weak ties’ are those
that are disconnected with the stronger social group. The weak ties assist in bringing
new information into the network, while the strong ties support the knowledge creation
processes which embed strategic capabilities into the network. Considering the
“strength” of weak ties (Granovetter, 1973), it is probably clearer and more adequate to
call them “external”, while we call strong ties, “internal “
Pavlovich (2003) demonstrated the need for organizations to have a portfolio of
network-oriented relationships (internal supportive ties), and external partnerships (to
source new and current information opportunities) which also supports the ideas of local
development of Governa and Dematteis based in the Territorial Local Systems
(Dematteis & Governa, 2003).

Both, the measurement of cohesiveness and innovation provide us with a complete

assessment of the network efficiency which is crucial when creating competitive
advantage (Scott, Cooper & Baggio, 2008b) generating innovation (da Fontoura Costa
& Baggio, 2009) and producing integrated tourism experiences (Scott, Cooper et al.,
2008).

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Tourism Destinations as Social Networks

“Since the appearance of Butler’s resort cycle the development of tourism destinations
has become one of the most popular topics in the tourism literature” (Shih, 2006:1029).
A tourism destination can be seen as a geographic space where a tourist society meets
an ordinary community (geographical definition of Frisk, 1999 cited by (Camprubi,
2009)) or a complex system where different elements like attractions , accommodation,
transportation and others coordinate in order to provide a satisfactory experience to
tourists (Comas & Guia, 2005). This approach drive us to social network theory with
destinations considered as collaborating networks of complementary organizations tied
together to provide the final product(Scott, Cooper et al., 2008), prevent the scarcity of
community amenities and resources, avoid the potential negative impact of sudden
disasters and tourism development on the socio-cultural and natural environment and
finally balance the paradox of a fragmented supply and an “all-in-one experience”
demand (d'Angella & Go, 2009).

In analyzing these systems of destination as social networks we can identify the three
basic elements of interest: actors, resources and relationships. In a destination,
stakeholders are heterogeneous in size and function, consisting of commercial operators,
public coordinating organizations and non-commercial private entities. The resources
may include knowledge, accommodation and facilities availability, professional
services. Third, in destination networks, a variety of relations can be identified (Scott,
Cooper et al., 2008) depending upon a range of relevant variables including, among
others, the traditional networks existing within the tourism or not tourism community,
the availability of resources, the organizational structures, the strength of the local
commercial and entrepreneurial sector, and the existence of a lead player to stimulate
partnership formation(Webb, 2005).

Probably the most studied relationship within tourism destinations networks is

partnership. As stated by Webb, not only partnerships between the public and private
sectors have increasingly been seen as an effective way to identify and implement the
necessary controls, incentives and investment to optimize the beneficial effects of
tourism within a destination area, but even “the success of any strategy will, in no small
measure, be determined by the industry’s ability to collaborate and cooperate through
effective partnership working to turn words into action” (2005:138). However,
partnership success is far from assured; it experiences slow progress or truncate their
effort without realizing their goals because of their sheer scope, diversity of levels and
diverse interests. Potential partners often start from fundamentally different value
premises and world views, and construct very different understandings of what is at
stake and how problems should be addressed (Gray, 2007).
Although creating effective (efficient and innovative) networks based on partnership is,
resuming, a difficult task, establishing coordinated linkages between organisations
within a tourism destination context become a critical factor in achieving strategic
leverage (Pavlovich, 2003). In this intricate and challenging process, the dynamic and
complex nexus of relationships within and among stakeholders (Scott, Cooper et al.,
2008), (da Fontoura Costa & Baggio, 2009) will evolve from competition to
cooperation and collaboration (Watkins & Bell, 2002) in the moment that the network
becomes more cohesive and relations develop more complex embeddedness dimensions
(Hite, 2003).

Sports Tourism Destination (DTE)

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Sports Tourism in Catalonia

Catalonia is one of the most important tourist destinations in Europe with more than 25
million tourists (see table 1) staying an average of 7,4 nights per trip, being Barcelona
the region receiving more visitors (although staying shorter).
(Table 1)
Considering that “it is difficult to obtain a general overview of the Catalan tourist offer”
(Catalan Tourist Board, 2006b:26) and that the lack of information about the demand is
a “pendent subject” for the Catalan tourist industry” (2006b:30), having clear and
trusted figures for sports tourism in Catalonia is even more challenging. Catalonia
boasts an important array of heritage in natural resources, paths, marine coast, sport
facilities… but the sports tourism product is still not consolidated neither well known,
apart from certain exceptions (rafting in the Noguera Pallaresa, trekking certain path in
the Pyrenees and diving in the Illes Medes, for the active sports tourism; for the sportive
tourism being FC Barcelona and the Formula I, the main attractions).
The Catalan Tourist Board policy in Sports Tourism has been focused in two different
plans: For the active sports tourism, since 1997 it runs the Active Sports Tourism Club
(Club de Turisme Actiu) which assembles some of the companies and local
administration that propose activities in this specific field. For the sportive tourism,
since 2001 it has created the Catalan Sports Tourism Destinations (Destinació Turística
Esportiva)

The Sports Tourism Destination initiative

The brand Sports Tourist Destination (STE) is a Catalan Tourist Board project started in
spring 2001 and identifies those destinations which, thanks to their characteristics and
resources, may become an ideal spot for sports clubs, federations and athletes wishing
to improve their performance. In essence, aims to create a model that serves as a guide
for the sports tourism development in Catalonia.
Each STD will be certified in one or more sports according to the fulfilment of certain
criteria concerning sports facilities and sport clubs, sport shops, tourism infrastructure
and services and the destination management.

For the STD management, a specific DMO is created: The Managing Commission
shaped by a representative of all involved sectors, and the Executive Coordinator
responsible for the operation.

Currently there are eight STD certified and three more are in process, including the city
of Barcelona

Stakeholders in the STD:

The different actors involved in this project are grouped in two different organisms:
1. Supralocal level: The CTB is promoting the project. Designates an auditor for
each destination that seeks for certification with the function of monitoring and
evaluating. Once the certificate is attained, the audit keeps going every two
years. Apart from that, the CTB periodically organizes meetings to define the
strategic marketing, and generates a specific product line for sports tourism in
Catalonia which includes the promotion of all kind of sports.
Other stakeholders in the supra local level are national and international sport
federations, specialized tour operators, hotel chains, etc.
2. Locally: As said before, the project requires two management bodies organizing
the specific local actors directly involved in the initiative: the Managing

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Commission and the Executive Coordinator, with the functions described in the
following table.
(Table 2)

In addition to these actors directly involved in the project, there are other local actors
implicated, as other councils, environmental sectors, sport educational centres, other
sports not certified, etc. These agents have no direct representation in the Managing
Commission.
The way the different stakeholders relate to each other in the Managing Commission, is,
in our opinion, one of the great opportunities of this model. The requirement of creating
a consortium with different actors, who are not used to work together but must agree to
create competitive products and make strategic decisions, is a starting point for a
sustainable DMO.
Another interesting element is the creation of the Executive Coordinator, responsible for
maintaining the daily operation. The integration of professionals allows a more
dynamic, applied and business oriented operation.

Case study
Objective
The aim of this specific research was trying Social Network Analysis as a method to
illustrate the capacity of Sports Tourism Destinations, the branding and product
development strategy from the Catalan Tourist Board, in generating effective networks
within the sports tourism DMO representatives.
(Figure 1)

Methodology
As mentioned before, here the cohesion of a destination interorganisational network,
measured using Network Analysis, is seen as one indicator of effectiveness (Scott,
Cooper et al., 2008) and therefore, we focused on the measurement of characteristics
such as density and the description of the component of the embedded social
relationships (with the three components described by Hite).
To analyze completely the full effectiveness, the innovative and dynamic aspects of
sports tourism DMO networks should be investigated. With this the purpose, new
relations with “outside” agents and external contributions were specified. These
capabilities grounded in the destination through the process of becoming a sports tourist
destination could be, for example, conferences, educational programs, etc. Anyway, this
aspect would need a deeper investigation.

We have analyzed three destinations differing on tourism importance, how sport is an

important part of their lifestyle, and the objective when asking for certification:
Banyoles, Lloret de Mar and Santa Susanna. These regions were chosen to allow for
comparison between destinations at different stages of development and cohesiveness
(Table 3)

For each case the relevant figures, apart from the number of inhabitants, were those
related with the importance of tourism industry and for sports social life.
1. For the first item, the number of hotel beds was chosen as the most pertinent.
Observation and interviews confirmed that sports tourists mostly overnight in

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hotel and apartment accommodation. Being the last a complicated figure to

obtain because of the high number of illegal apartments.
2. For the second item, we selected the quantity of sport clubs as the significant
figure.
After the first interview we realized that Lloret de Mar was a complicated destination to
study as it never created a DMO with representing stakeholders but opened it to every
entity willing to do sports tourism business. Considering that there are nearly 150 hotels
and more than 10 local incoming agencies, a truthful research was out of our means.
Nevertheless, we made an estimated representation after the information gathered from
sports and tourism council.

The destination network was built in the following way: The actors participating in the
sports tourism DMO (or Managing Commission) were considered the nodes of the
network whose links are the relations among them. In some case the stakeholders were
representatives of the different tourism sectors (accommodation, restaurants, transports,
incoming agencies, sports clubs, sport shops, etc.) which gave a very easy to control
network. In the case of Lloret de Mar, as we just commented, this was not the situation.
In each destination we started the first network approach through an open in-depth
interview with the Executive Coordinator who provided an initial list of the stakeholder
organizations present in the Managing Commission and had a first contact with their
links. The picture we got from this first interview was contrasted with “knowledgeable
informants” (da Fontoura Costa & Baggio, 2009:4287) and random stakeholders’
consultations. This triangulation helped to back up and classify and identify the
relations within stakeholders and their evolution from the certification day.
In order to differentiate the relations within the destination’s stakeholder we use the
multidimensional theory of Julie Hite discriminating the economic, personal and social
capital component of ties. We gave special care to the measurement of social capital and
personal component:
1. As described by Hite, social capital can be manifested through four attributes of
obligations, resource accessibility, brokering and structural embeddedness
(2003). This component of the social relationships of relationally embedded ties
is probably scarce in big populations or in the business industry, nevertheless in
a community of Banyoles or Santa Susanna it can be said that there is nearly
never more than one degree of separation between stakeholders or, said in other
words, all relations possess a social capital component as every person in the
local community (apart from specific population like immigrants) can relate
with any other by just one bridge For that reason we calculated the social capital
component as being present from the beginning on.
2. The personal relationships element is also hard to measure as everybody has a
different connotation for it. For that reason, three different questions were
established to be central to compute it, one related to personal knowledge (“Do
you know personally the first familiar circle (husband/wife, children?”), another
related to affect (“Would you phone her/him if you would not know anything
from her/him in the last three months”?) and, finally, related to sociality
(“Would you be sitting with her/him and speak about how life is going on, for
more than half an hour?”).

At least two observation periods were established:

1. The moment when the sports tourism DMO was created
2. The moment of investigation (year 2009).

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Exceptionally, in Banyoles an intermediate interval was created as it became important

to explain the evolution.
All information was translated into two (or three in the case of Banyoles) matrix
depending on the period of time, combining each stakeholder with the others.
This investigation used social network analysis techniques and the interview responses
were coded and analyzed using the program UCINET 6.0 (Borgatti, Everett, &
Freeman, 2002) to picture the resulting network evolution, both in density and
centrality. In these graphs, each node is connected with to one or more by arrows
reporting some kind of relationship (economic or personal). The position of each node
comes out from the number of links and the positions of the other actors to which it has
link. The visual representation enables the destinations development comparative study
and allows the identification of critical stakeholders. In addition, quantitative
characteristics can also be determined such as centrality, density, and modularity.

I will show the results from the study of Banyoles, a city of 17.000 inhabitants, 35 sport
clubs (one of them with more than 9,000 members) but only 284 hotel beds. It was the
first STD to be certified, a bottom-up initiative that was afterwards overtaken by the
administration as they saw a clear and understandable way to promote the tourism
sector.

Banyoles sports tourism DMO network description

The Banyoles City Council and the Pla de l’Estany County knew this initiative through
the local incoming travel agency that had contacts with the Catalan Tourist Board
because four years ago they generated a project together. From that moment it began a
stage which main goal was to create consensus and complicity within the different
administrations, compromise required to be eligible for a pilot project. This was not an
easy task considering that, at that time, the Town Council of Banyoles and the County
Administration were ruled by different political parties who had a fierce rivalry.
However, both governments decided to jointly promote the project and appointed the
local incoming agency to make the necessary arrangements. During this period, this
company did an important task of communication to create a favourable opinion
towards this project in the community.
After two audits, the summer of 2003, Banyoles – Pla de l’Estany was officially
certified in the sports of triathlon, swimming, rowing and kayaking, road cycling and
mountain biking, Moreover, it was the pioneer of the STD in Catalonia.

2003
In the following frame, where the components of established relationships are recorded,
it can be seen the situation in 2003, where only some economical components of
relationships were visible. It must be kept in mind that there was already a base line of
social capital component assumed in all relationships.

(Table 4)
The graph resulting from this data collection confirms a network with low density and
illustrates the incoming agency high centrality. The sport club has also an important
array of ties in comparison to other stakeholders. Is interesting to note the sports shop
isolation and the importance of the restaurant, relevance that without doing the graph
was not anticipated by any of the interviewed people.
(Figure 2)

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2006
This is the highest point of performance for the DMO when some relations have
reached full embeddedness and tourism and sports council have created new ties.
The private sector, apart from the incoming agency is far behind the administration,
consequence of being an unstructured destination. It must be said also, that the
administration did not allow much decision involvement from the private side.

(Table 5)
In the resulting graph it can be observed the new position of sport shop and sports
council and the tourism council movement to the centre. It is, undoubtedly, a much
more cohesive network, with the incoming agency and the three administrations leading
the project and without isolated stakeholders. It is also worth to note that the
councilman (politicians) from three different areas where involved at that stage of the
process.
(Figure 3)

2009
After municipal elections in 2006, the new council, and specially the county
government do not give the same support to the project, and that situation worsens later
with the financial crisis that stops many economical relationships.
Moreover, the change of four of the most important people in front of their
stakeholder’s entities helped to dismantle the network.

(Table 6)
Nevertheless, some ties still keep strong, like the ones created by the tourism council,
the participation from the sports councilman, the role played by the sports club and four
new personal components in the relationships (compared to six years ago, there are 2
full embeddedness relationships).

It is interesting to note the loss of density in the graph visualization and how the tourism
and sports council keep the network’s central role and Tourism County gets cut out
from it. Also the incoming agency is not anymore so relevant because of the loss of
business related operations. From the other side, the sport’s club is gaining in weight.
The result is, however, more cohesive and dense that the one in 2003.
(Figure 4)

Conclusion
The tourism destination generally comprises different types of complementary and
competing organisations, multiple sectors, infrastructure and an array of public / private
linkages that create a diverse and highly fragmented supply structure. Networks help to
integrate this complex and fragmented offer, while securing tourist experience when
they pass from provider to provider (Pavlovich, 2003).

In relation to Social Network Analysis as a tool to describe the generation of cohesive

This study has offered a case-specific illustration of this investigation with the help of
methodologies derived from network analysis that has helped to understand the
structure and cohesiveness of destinations management organisations.
The analysis of the networks of key stakeholders in the three case destinations provides
an important picture on the current and potential structure of sports tourism in Catalonia

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as a way to structure a community into a tourist destination because it adopts a whole of

destination approach and does not focus on any single element.
The three case studies individually demonstrate the utility of NA in
• understanding destinations and their stakeholders
• describing the dynamic condition of the Sports Tourism Destination DMO
• analyzing structures and linkages,
• comparing cohesiveness degree between destinations
• highlighting weaknesses in destination structures

The analysis offers us a picture of a dynamic and growing in complexity network

structure that limits the extent of constraint an individual organization may proffer
within the network (Pavlovich, 2003).

In relation to the process of generating cohesive and innovative sport tourism DMO
in Sports Tourism Destinations
Catalan Tourism Strategy Plan (Catalan Tourist Board, 2006b) aims the consolidation
of partnership and includes it in three of nine programs of actions. An effective way
could be this, compel it from regional schemes that influence local policies.
The goal of creating cohesive, effective networks has not been achieved completely.
Although the process foundation has been settled, we speak of relations of cooperation
where no long term and no full commitment are due, away from collaboration
relationships (Watkins & Bell, 2002). In addition, shortage of resources (financial
crisis), changes in political commitment, inappropriate objectives, no stakeholder’s
decision involvement and replacement of key members, are the main reasons not to see
final cohesive and innovative networks. If this structure had been completely developed
maybe they wouldn’t suffer from this resources scarcity and create initiatives where no
investments are necessary.
However, in the destinations where the process has initiated some results can be seen,
which is a light on this hard process of partnership building (Gray, 2007) and suggests
that these destinations are in the process of developing a more strategically oriented
destination system (Pavlovich, 2003). Bottom-up initiatives leaded by policy and
management concrete approaches can develop cohesive destination networks by
“ensuring integration of diverse points of view, careful attention to process dynamics
and effective implementation of agreements, not to mention attracting the diverse
partners to participate in the collaborative process” (Gray, 2007:31).

This background highlights the need to understand the way that destinations are
organized and to investigate their efficiency and competitiveness, for example, through
the role of improved communication and the importance of proactive skilled leadership.

Limits of research
An important limitation for this research is the number of stakeholders, like in Lloret de
Mar. Another one is to categorize the importance of external ties.
We also consider that the communication links within stakeholders should be studied,
because with a redistribution of centrality in communication it can be that there is a high
level of independent information access between the other stakes.

Future research
There can be a possibility to study the communication ties, because with a redistribution
of centrality in communication it can be that there is a high level of independent

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information access between the other organizations, so it is necessary to establish

mechanisms that inspire, stimulate and support the process of communication (Webb,
2005).
Another field of study will be how sport events can create a similar / different network
evolution
Finally, an important area of future research will be to simulate destination networks,
based upon their own follow up and feed-back (Scott, Cooper et al., 2008).
It would be interesting to show the results to the stakeholders because the visualization
of the relationships and structural positions of the resulting graph makes the approach
especially useful, as the structures can be easily interpreted by managers and
communicated to the destination stakeholders themselves

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Tables
Table 1. Catalonian Tourism 2008

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Incoming tourism in Catalonia

Catalan: 7.010.000
Spanish: 5.362.000
Foreign: 14.888.000

Destination by overnights
Costa Brava: 27%
Barcelona: 20%
Costa Daurada: 20%

Note: (Observatori Turisme Catalunya, 2009)

Table 2. Management functions of sports tourism DMO (managing commission) and

executive coordinator

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 Turisme i Esport i creació de xarxes ONIT – UdG

RESPONSIBLE BODIES (HOLDERS)

Council and/ or County administration
Financing the project and regulate guidelines.
Although they take note to the Managing Commission opinions, they have the
last word in important decisions.

MANAGING COMMISSION EXECUTIVE COORDINATOR

Once the destination is certified, supervise the executive
coordinator, controls that guidelines are followed and
generates a Director Managing Plan
Members (for example):
• Representative from the council administration,
tourist and sports area (councilman and officer)
• Representative from the most important sport
facilities
• Representative from the accommodation sector
• Representative from the clubs of certified sports
• Expert in the certified sports
• Representative from the sports shops
• Representative from the restaurants
• Representative from the transport
• Other representatives that the destination may
consider important (ecologist groups, incoming agency,
etc.)
Once the destination is certified, carries out the Director
Managing Plan and manages the day to day necessities
(information to interested groups, assistance to sports
tourists on spot, creation of sports tourism products, etc.)
Profile:
The executive coordinator must know the destination
tourist sector (number and kind of accommodation,
transport, resources, complementary activities, etc), the
sports infrastructure (facilities, sport associations, sports
competitions). Must be able to create sports tourism
products and commercialize it. Finally must be able to
assist the visitors at any time, in any day of the year and
in the language spoken.

Source: Own made from CTB internal documentation (Catalan Tourist Board, 2006a)

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 Turisme i Esport i creació de xarxes ONIT – UdG

Table 3. Figures of three certified Sports Tourism Destinations

LOCATION POPULATION TOURISM SPORTS CERTIFICA-

(2008) INDUSTRY COMMUNITY TION YEAR
Inhabitants Hotel beds Sport clubs

BANYOLES 17.917 LOW HIGH 2003

284 35

Aim of STD certification: Energize tourism sector

LLORET DE 37.734 VERY HIGH MEDIUM 2006

MAR 30.004 58

Aim of STD certification: New tourist image

SANTA 3.119 HIGH LOW 2008

SUSANNA 9.689 7

Aim of STD certification: Strategy against seasonality

Source: (Observatori Turisme Catalunya, 2009) and own research

Table 4 Components of Banyoles DMO embedded relationships - 2003

BANYOLES – STAND POINT 1 2003

Tourism Tourism
council council

Sports Sports
Council Council

Tourism Econom Tourism

County y County

Hotels Econom Personal Hotels

council y council

Hotels Economy Hotels

county county

Restaurant Econom Personal Restaurant

y

Sport club Economy Sport club

Sport shop Economy Sport

shop

Transport Economy Transpor

t

Incoming Economy Economy Economy Economy Economy Economy Incomin

Agency g
Agency

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 Turisme i Esport i creació de xarxes ONIT – UdG

Table 5. Components of Banyoles DMO embedded relationships - 2006

BANYOLES – STAND POINT 2 2006

Tourism Tourism
council council

Sports Econom Sports

Council y Council

Tourism Personal Economy Tourism

County Econom County
y

Hotels Econom Personal Hotels

council y council.

Hotels Economy Hotels

county county

Restaurant Econom Personal Restaurant

y

Sport club Econom Economy Economy Sport

y club

Sport shop Economy Personal Econom Sport

y shop

Transport Economic Econom Transp.

y

Incoming Econom Personal Personal Economy Economy Economy Personal Econo Economy Incomin
Agency y Economy Economy Econom my g
y Agency

Table 6. Components of Banyoles DMO embedded relationships - 2009

BANYOLES – STAND POINT 3 2009

Tourism Tourism
council council

Sports Econom Sports

Council y Council

Tourism Personal Tourism

County County

Hotels Econom Personal Hotels

council y council.

Hotels Economy Hotels

county county

Restaurant Econom Personal Restaurant

y

Sport club Econom Economy Sport

y club

Sport shop Economy Personal Econom Sport

y shop

Transport Economic Econom Transp.

y

Incoming Personal Economy Economy Economy Personal Economy Incomin

Agency Economy Econom g
y Agency

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Turisme i Esport i creació de xarxes ONIT – UdG

Figure 1. Evolution of effective networks

COMMUNITY – TOURIST
DESTINATION

STD CERTIFICATION 1

SPORTS CREATION OF THE DMO 2

TOURISM
DMO

INTERNAL COHESION

EXTERNAL INNOVATION 4

Source: Own made

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Figure 2. Graph of Banyoles DMO relationships - 2003

Figure 3. Graph of Banyoles DMO relationships – 2006

Figure 4. Graph of Banyoles DMO relationships – 2009

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