Public and Private Dynamics and Co-opetition: Evidence from the Tourism Sector

Often coopetition arises whenever competing companies start to collaborate. The formation of this simultaneous presence of cooperation and competition is often triggered by a certain institutional context where the public sector pushes companies to cooperate with each other. This situation is particularly important in the tourism sector where relevant public stakeholders (such as Destination Management Organizations) support a collaborative attitude and practice among tourism businesses. In this paper we focus on the role of the public sphere in creating the conditions for the private sector to shift from a constant sum to a variable sum game, often through a kind of public-private partnerships. Our comparative study shows that cooperation and coopetition can be strengthened by the public sphere and that public–private relationships are crucial in order to strengthen the brand image of a tourism destination or an entire region and to attract more tourists.