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Dit onderzoek probeert een beeld te schetsen van innovatie op het Vlaamse MICE-toerisme. Aangezien innovatie een heel uitgebreid begrip en voor interpretatie vatbaar is en de term in de literatuurstudie vaak aan technologie wordt gelinkt, is er extra gefocust op een tool genaamd ‘Big Data’. Doorheen deze paper wordt er getracht om een antwoord te vinden op de volgende hoofdvraag: “Welke rol kan innovatie spelen in de toekomst van het Vlaamse MICE-toerisme en kan een technologische tool als ‘Big Data’ daarin een zekere invloed hebben?”. Voor het praktische gedeelte van dit onderzoek worden er diepte-interviews afgenomen bij Vlaamse ondernemingen om meer praktische kennis te vergaren over innovatie, ‘Big Data’ en de MICE-sector. In totaal zijn er negentien interviews afgenomen met mensen die werkzaam zijn in het zakentoerisme en dit via congresbureaus, evenementenkantoren of regionale MICE-werkingen. Als aanvulling komen er ook enkele overkoepelende organisaties aan het woord. Uit de interviews komen er allerlei inzichten aan bod over innovatie, ‘Big Data’ en de Vlaamse MICE-sector die een aantal overeenkomsten vertonen met de voorafgaande literatuurstudie. De meeste respondenten zijn bezig met innovatie en hun ondernemingen gebruiken vooral technologische tools om te innoveren binnen hun werking. Welke tools dit zijn, hangt af van het doel van hun bedrijf en welke taken zij uitvoeren. Daarnaast wordt innovatie voornamelijk ook als concurrentievoordeel gebruikt ten opzichte van andere bedrijven. Qua technologische tools wordt ‘Big Data’ door een aantal ondernemingen reeds gebruikt. Enkele manieren van dataverzameling zoals sociale media, mobiele data, Google Analytics en mailing databases worden tijdens de interviews vernoemd. Toch is er een groot deel van de geïnterviewde MICE-medewerkers die (nog) niet met ‘Big Data’ werken. De voornaamste drempels zijn de toegankelijkheid van de data, het tijdsintensieve proces, de dure kosten en de beperkte kennis over ‘Big Data’. Er is duidelijk nog ruimte voor verbetering en meer groei door implementatie van deze datavorm. Daarnaast zijn er nog andere technologische trends die tijdens de interviews vermeld werden en een belangrijke meerwaarde kunnen zijn naast ‘Big Data’ voor de Vlaamse MICE-sector zoals augmented reality, livestreams en hybride event platformen. De Vlaamse MICE-sector omvat bedrijven die actief zijn binnen het zakentoerisme en specifiek binnen ‘Meetings, Incentives, Conferences/Conventions en Exhibitions/Events’. De opvallendste trend binnen de industrie die bijna door iedereen wordt aangehaald is de opkomst van de digitale en hybride meetings, de congressen en evenementen onder invloed van de huidige COVID-19 crisis. Toch staan alle respondenten te springen om zo snel mogelijk terug fysieke MICE-activiteiten te organiseren zoals pré-corona maar de constant veranderende coronamaatregelen zorgen voor een moeilijke voorspelling wanneer dit terug zou kunnen. Aangezien dat COVID-19 een ongeziene impact heeft gehad op de MICE-sector, blijft het moeilijk om te voorspellen wat de toekomst zal brengen. Dat de sector moet blijven innoveren en zal op een dag terug boosten zoals voorheen, dat is een zekerheid.

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The increase in the popularity of tourism in maritime areas is having devastating ecological consequences. Many studies have been done on the effects of this excessive tourism in the fragile ecosystems, some of the consequences are diseases, infections, direct destruction and disruption of vital processes. These problems were the inspiration to investigate to what extent the tourist is aware of them and how this perception is formed. This study indicates that Flemish tourists have a rather low perception of the impact of tourism on coral reefs. There is awareness of the problems, but rather to a limited extent. This depends on several factors. For instance, there appears to be a difference between estimating the impact of factors that people themselves have indicated to conduct and general factors that are presented to them. The factors to which they themselves are connected (or admit to this) appear to be estimated lower. The more general factors are then rated higher. This may be due to social desirability, where people prefer to present their behaviour favourably in order to make a good impression. This effect is occurring several times across this research. Furthermore, the psychological phenomenon of cognitive dissonance appears to arise when standpoints are indicated towards statements. Flemish tourists are aware that tourism plays a role in the problems experienced by the coral reefs, but they tend to shift the responsibility to global abstract problems. In addition, there also appear to be differences in the type of activity, but also in the characteristics of the person, e.g. men, divers, people in the older age category and people with more experience form the major problematic group. These people can be targeted by focusing on them during an awareness-raising campaign. Informing is therefore the most important proposal made to solve the problem of lack of knowledge. However, the effect of a confrontation with the problems must be well thought out, since it appears that the effect of this is rather limited. Furthermore, there does seem to be good will, as Flemish tourists are positive about using income from tourism in the conservation of the coral reefs and the implementation of a maximum number of visitors. Moreover, social media, news channels and DMOs can also be used for this sensitisation, as it appears that these have a large impact on its users and can have positive effects on awareness of environmental issues. Summarised, this study shows that there are many opportunities and challenges within the relationship between tourism, the tourists and coral reefs.

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Het concrete doel van deze masterproef was nagaan in welke mate foodblogs potentieel bieden als marketing tool voor bestemmingen zoals Brugge en Gent. Daarnaast werd onderzocht in welke mate deze bloggers een authenticiteitskloof kunnen overbruggen binnen de marketing. De focus lag hierbij op kwalitatieve onderzoeksmethodes. Hiervoor werd er zowel een uitvoerige literatuurstudie gedaan als eigen veldwerk door middel van diepte-interviews. Omdat het wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar dit onderwerp nog in zijn kinderschoenen staat, werden daarnaast ook rekening gehouden met input uit de professionele sector. Er werden diepte-interviews afgenomen met de vzw Vlaanderen Lekkerland, Toerisme Gent, Toerisme Brugge, Toerisme Oostende, Think! Social Media en de organisatoren van de twee culinaire festivals Gent Smaakt! en Kookeet (Brugge). Het voorgestelde steekproefkader voor het eigen onderzoek bestond uit potentiële key influencers uit binnen- en buitenland. Na zorgvuldige selectie werden de elf respondenten (zowel algemene travelbloggers als foodbloggers) gevraagd om een vragenlijst te beantwoorden gericht op het achterhalen van hun motivaties en drijfveren, evenals hun interesse voor Vlaanderen, Brugge en Gent. Bedoeling hiervan was om na te gaan in welke mate zij zich zelf bewust zijn van dit spanningsveld en hoe ze daar concreet mee om gaan. De resultaten gaven meer inzicht in de visie van bloggers op het fenomeen van blogtrips en hun verwachtingen daaromtrent. Doorheen deze masterproef werd bevestigd dat er potentieel is voor culinair toerisme naar Brugge en Gent, dankzij de aanwezigheid van culinair erfgoed, lokaal vakmanschap en gastronomische evenementen die dit alles toeristisch ontsluiten. Daarnaast werd aangetoond dat blogs uitermate geschikt zijn ter inschakeling voor bestemmingsmarketing. De realisatie van authentieke promotie is hierbij mogelijk, als er rekening gehouden wordt met een aantal factoren. Niet alleen is dit afhankelijk van de integriteit van een blogger en de kwaliteit van zijn posts, van de DMO vereist dit een performant productbeleid, een grondige screening van de deelnemers en vervolgens een duidelijk afstemmen van de onderlinge verwachtingen.

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The tourism sector is known for its fierce competition. Destinations compete to attract visitors by various means, but there are indications that within destinations a strong competition between entrepreneurs is present as well. The literature suggests that this competition for the attention, time and spending of the tourists could harm the tourist experience, and thus the quality of the destination. Cooperation within a destination, is suggested, could enhance innovation and cause an improvement of service quality, enhance information provision and induce a more positive destination image among visitors. This study will look into the effects networked cooperation can have on the quality of services within Flemish cities, and how co-created innovation could lead to quality enhancement through a higher appreciation and/or a favorable spatial behavior by visitors. However, there is no such thing as a perfect management approach for the tourism sector, because of the large number of small-scale and heterogeneous tourism enterprises involved and the lack of a formal chain of command. Yet, tourism too important for society to leave its development to natural forces and coincidence alone. In this thesis, we departed from this paradox and aimed to find out to what extent tourism networks would be able to provide a scientifically valid and practically useful approach to the development and management of urban tourism destinations.The theoretical literature on relational approaches to tourism management proved to give a solid base to the empirical work in this thesis. In particular Porter's (1990) conceptual work on nations (or regions, see Begg, 1999) as complex systems with multiple actors and a variety of interrelationships and interdependencies, which are found to be more competitive when there is a balance between competition and collaboration, proved to be valuable for the framing of our research questions. From this point of departure, various other approaches (a.o. by Ritchie & Crouch, 2003; van den Berg & Braun, 1999; Enright & Newton, 2004) towards managing urban destinations have been studied and operationalised into the present thesis. These works, together with the observation from Chapter 2 that important stakeholders are often left out when it comes to tourism development and destination management, were the main sources of inspiration for the schematic representation of a tourism management as the 'Destination Triangle'. This concept was developed as the general theoretical framework that encompassed the various research questions addressed in the separate papers in this PhD-thesis. Urban tourism destinations were conceptualised as multi-party, layered systems, leaving an important question on how to manage these entities successfully. Provan & Kenis (2008) provided useful insights by explaining how networks can only develop when a certain set of requirements are met: being goal consensus, reaching a certain level of trust, and the need for specific network-level competencies.Many authors have drawn attention to the fact that the literature consistently shows high expectancies for a network approach in the development of tourism on theoretical grounds, but, unfortunately with only few empirically proven successes. Our study showed that this is at least partly caused by the simple fact that most network managers don't practice what they preach but usually stick to their traditional top-down power-based tasks, such as marketing and the production of promotional material. Collaborative networking by soliciting ideas and seeking feedback in horizontal relationships, aligning tourism entrepreneurs in common goals and shared planning, involving and engaging local stakeholders and providing clear information about the costs and gains of participating in a joint endeavour, proved to be highly valued, but little applied. This sheds new light on the persistent gap between the theoretical debates about collaborative networks as alternative approach to tourism management and the often disappointing empirical examples. If you don't practice what you preach, you cannot expect to pick the promised fruits.The various sub-studies of this PhD-thesis have provided more knowledge about the 'what's and why's' of successes and failures, which is hopefully valuable for science and society. One thing has become particularly clear in these studies: Tourism management cannot be done by just one party. Many parties are involved and influential. This starts with the observation that without collaborative networking between public and private parties, projects easily end in disappointment. Also in tourism, it takes two, or more, to tango. Next, we were able to show that with the worldwide introduction of Web 2.0 and growing importance of social media as an influencing factor on tourism behaviour, tourists do have an increasing influence on the development of tourism, which is a force in its own, independent of destination management. Tourists attract tourists, which is shown by the empirical results from Chapter 3, and therefore their important role needs to be taken into account in future tourism development and destination management studies. But it does not stop there, at the end of the journey which has led to this PhD-thesis, we have become increasingly aware that even more parties are involved in tourism management. A fourth party consists of the local inhabitants who may be involved in pointing to interesting places to visit and may produce the stories that make neighbourhoods outside the city centre attractive to visit (see Chapter 4), but who also may be the ones who block further tourism development out of negative emotions around the noise and nuisance when tourism puts a too heavy load on the city (see e.g. Colomb & Novy, 2016). And researchers may be seen as a fifth party involved in tourism development, who may support policymakers and network managers with data-driven analyses that support policymaking as this PhD thesis showed in Chapter 3. All of these parties together bear the responsibility to move beyond a presently often heard, but daunting quote: "the tourist destroys what he seeks by finding it" (Hans Magnus Enzensberger in Novy, 2018). Policymakers, entrpreneurs, academics and people in general benefit from tourism and its many possibilities and have a stake in a sustainable future development. The time has come to see tourism as a constellation of many relations, in which all stakeholders should take their responsibility to make it work.