ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the evolution of tourism destination development in coastal destinations in Denmark. It contributes to the debate by exploring how destination development – conceptualised as a bundle of practices (for example, destination marketing, product creation, stakeholder coordination and research) – has changed in coastal destinations in Denmark. The chapter begins by reviewing contributions to the literature on destination management organisations (DMOs) to identify key changes in tourism development activities and the way they have been analysed. It demonstrates that both promoting and creating destinations can be seen as practices in the sense that they involve recurring patterns of connected materials, competences and meanings in order to, respectively, tempt visitors to and increase the attraction of a destination. The chapter concludes by discussing the role of practices in changing DMO strategies, and the possible contribution of practice theory to our understanding of destination policy development.
