The aim of this study was to explore the understanding and use of the term ‘tourism collaboration’ among local government, LTOs and tourism actors in the municipality of Slagelse. The term is often used when tourism strategies at different levels are being written, and it is also a keyword in the latest coastal and nature tourism strategy in the municipality.
By assuming a social constructivist approach, the qualitative data for this research has been collected through an observation study of a tourism workshop and semi-constructed interviews with tourism actors and key persons from LTOs and the local government.
The findings show that the term ‘tourism collaboration’ is understood and used in significantly different ways, depending on who is asked.
It has been found that the lack of collaboration and coordination between the local government, VisitVestjælland and local tourism associations is highly influencing the local tourism actors, and their ability to collaborate. The difference in the overall destination long-term objectives, and the local actors’ short-term interests has proven to complicate collaboration between the destination tourism development organisations, and the local tourism associations. The lack of a joint tourism strategy, and the lack of coordination in the destination level, has caused the local tourism actors to lose trust in the organisations ability to create collaborations.
Power relations, both structural and individual, plays an important role in the development and implementation of collaborations between actors. Especially it is relevant in relation to the old disbanded municipalities of Skelskør, Korsør and Slagelse who with their local anchoring have different approaches to tourism collaboration. The findings in this thesis contributes to the theoretical fields within tourism network and power relations theory and opens up for an unexplored field of municipal tourism research in Denmark.