A Framework for Rural Tourism Destination Management and Marketing Organisations

This paper attempts to shed more light on destination management and marketing organisations (DMMOs) from the context of rural tourism. Moreover, where national tourism organisations established a liaison office at regional or state levels, their roles seems to have been limited. In this circumstance, they are merely information offices to the visitors rather than local DMMOs responsible for the management and marketing of rural destinations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify the roles of DMMOs, and hence develop a suitable framework for DMMOs in the context of rural tourism. This paper finds that DMMOs has responsibilities for both management and marketing roles. These roles should be performed in collaboration with the rural tourism destination stakeholders in order to achieve mutual benefits which include management of resources, marketing of tourism products, positioning, host community well-being, brand building, and tourist loyalty to the rural destinations.