earticle

영어

This study aimed at analyzing the formulation process of local government’s tourism destination marketing organization in Japan by applying political systems-policy network theory. The literature review for this study covered the concepts of destination marketing organization, political systems-policy network theory, and the related precedent studies. For the research model, a causal structural model was suggested including three major concepts: policy environment, policy network, and policy outputs. The policy environment was defined as situational condition or input factors to influence the policy process. The policy network was defined as interactional relations of official and unofficial actors. And the policy outputs was defined as organizational formulation as the result of the policy process. For the research method, Yin’s historical case study method was employed at the case of ‘Setouchi Regional DMO’. The study period was established from November of 2009 to November of 2017, and the time period was divided into two phases: initial formulation phase and final formulation phase. Major findings of the study revealed that the changes in the policy environment, especially international environment factor, affected the formulation of open policy network involving official and unofficial policy actors, thereby Setouchi’s regional tourism destination marketing organization was finally formulated as ‘Setouchi Regional DMO’. Based on these findings, theoretical contributions and practical implications for the establishment of local government’s tourism destination marketing organization were discussed.