Destination Management through Organizational Ambidexterity

Abstract

Tourism can help regenerate post-colonial, post-conflict and post-disaster destinations (PCCDs), and national governments and destination marketing organisations (DMOs) play a central role in this. They face the dilemma of either consolidating tourism situations with seemingly safe, known, predictable steps, or taking more ambitious risk-prone, less tried-and-tested and more uncertain approaches. This choice can be portrayed as the respective exploitative and explorative dimensions of strategic conceptual framework of organisational ambidexterity (OA). This regional spotlight provides a conceptual analysis using the lens of OA to examine these dynamics. It focuses on the specific case of Haiti, set within the context of the Caribbean region. A range of OA effects in relation to tourist enclaves is identified. In particular, the spotlight argues for less segregation and separation between tourist and local populations, along with a need for DMOs to espouse more exploitative-explorative postures. In terms of wider implications, it can be argued that other Caribbean economies might learn lessons from the discussion of the Haitian case