Stakeholder e-involvement and participatory tourism planning: analysis of an Italian case-study

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential and challenges of knowledge management, in particular the use of information and communication technologies, in supporting stakeholders' collaboration processes in the tourism destination by focusing on e-democracy. The term e-democracy was coined to define the electronic representation of a democratic process which aims at obtaining stakeholders active participation in the decision-making process about territorial policies and tourism planning. Despite the growing interest that this concept is gaining both in the academia and in the tourism sector, the related research is still at its early stage. This study was carried out to contribute to fill this gap analysing the case study of an Italian region where an e-democracy project on destination governance is currently going on. The main contribution to the body of knowledge, managerial implications and limitations of the study are discussed and future avenues of research are suggested.