The use of rhetoric in legitimation strategies when mobilizing destination stakeholders

Organizations need to gain legitimacy from their stakeholders in order to be able to attract resources. This is of particular importance for organizations that are highly dependent on other actors in their environment. This holds especially true for Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) since DMOs are dependent on a number of different stakeholders in order to be able to carry out their tasks. Legitimacy may therefore be seen as the most critical asset for this kind of organization. It is argued in this paper that gaining legitimacy through the use of rhetoric is a useful strategic approach that a DMO may adopt in order to mobilize support and resources from its stakeholders. To gain legitimacy by using rhetoric – to be able to conform to, adapt to, convince and even manipulate the institutional logic of important stakeholders – becomes an essential strategic approach. An analytical model on legitimation strategies by the use of rhetoric for DMOs has been developed. The model is illustrated by means of a case study of a regional destination development project in central Sweden.