The tourism industry has continuously grown in the last fifty years, promoted economic growth and created jobs (UNWTO, 2017). Nevertheless, this industry is impacting and greatly stressing natural environments and societies inciting a transformation towards a more sustainable form of tourism practices (Williams & Ponsford, 2009). The United Nations General Assembly declared 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development (UNWTO, 2016). The purpose of the declaration was to position the tourism industry as a tool to address the Universal 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UNWTO, 2016). A backcasting participatory approach was used to explore the roles of the SDGs in creating future sustainable tourism destinations, using Swedish Lapland as a reference. The study uses backcasting as a method together with a literature review and semi-structured interviews to key stakeholders. The study concludes that SDGs are good parameters to describe current scenarios in order to develop desired ones. It also finds that sustainable future tourism destinations are highly connected with environment and society as part of the core experience, resecting traditions and culture. In order to achieve sustainable future destinations legislation, better practices and alternative methods of transportation need to be implemented alongside creating an experience that is based on responsibility towards nature and societies.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to analyze the way of destination management support in conditions of Slovakia, mainly in connection with Act No. 91/2010 Z. z. of the tourism support and its subsequent amendments. First part of the thesis is focused on the destination characterization, the topic of tourism destination management and the tourism organization in the particular destination. Theoretical part also deals with a topic of development and organization of tourism in Slovakia. Practical part introduces the Act No. 91/2010 Z. z. of the tourism support and its subsequent amendments in detail. Subsequently, the consequences of adopting the act in the particular regions are analyzed. The final part of the thesis consists of analysis and evaluation of the questionnaire survey, whose aim was to determine the influence of the adopting the act on the development and organization of tourism in particular regions.

The thesis which is about the "Analysis of the organizational structure of tourism in Canada", reviews in details the institutions and the management of the travel sector in Canada and puts it into prospective with the Czech one. By utilizing the secondary data, this document locates the Canadian tourism market within the global one and also includes information that feeds the Canadian satellite account. After treating the marketing and the management of destinations, this work covers Canadian institutions and their activities influencing the tourism sector. Equally, it describes the situation in Czech Republic. To conclude it gives matter of comparison between two countries' models, together with financial data.

The subject of this thesis is the marketing strategy of traditional European destinations. Its objective is to describe the most suitable marketing strategy for the European destinations facing stronger competition within the market of international tourism. Practical part of the thesis consists of the detailed analysis of the most visited European destination -- France. Secondly, the effects of this strategy are measured by the international quantitative marketing research.

Destination image is of great importance in the decision-making process when selecting a tourist destination. This thesis analyzes the approaches to the image, the possibilities of evaluation and measurement of destination image. The aim of this thesis is to measure image of selected tourist destination Republic of Sakha Yakutia based on existing knowledge and measurement models.

The presented dissertation thesis deals with a set of problems related to the strategic planning of tourism development in the context of tourism policy. By making full use of the strategic benchmarking method, the thesis tries to make a certain contribution to the improvement of strategic planning in tourism which represents an important factor of tourism destination competitiveness. The objective of the presented dissertation thesis is to postulate and in practice verify a methodology related to strategic benchmarking, aimed at regional tourism development strategies and at selected aspects of the process of their formation. The dissertation thesis postulates a complex procedure thus making it possible to evaluate and compare the tourism developing strategies of the Czech, Slovak and British regions on the basis of stipulated criteria and fuzzy scales. This procedure is implemented into an on-line evaluating application, which can be used by key regional actors for the evaluation of the particular developing strategies. The evaluation results are used for benchmarking gap analysis and for selection of suitable benchmarking partners by means of fuzzy TOPSIS method. Consequently, selected partners are submitted to an external benchmarking investigation focused on methods of how to create strategies, and managerial approaches to planning. The acquired information is used for an identification of good practices for a regional planning of tourism development.

This study was conducted to theoretically develop and empirically test a structural equation model of tourism destination competitiveness from the tourism stakeholders'perspective. The proposed hypotheses that attempted to identify the structural relationships among the five constructs in the model were examined through a series of analyses in LISREL: 1) perceived tourism development impacts, 2) environmental attitudes, 3) place attachment, 4) development preferences about destination attractions/resources, and 5) support for destination competitive strategies The principle guideline of this study was that the support of tourism stakeholders for tourism planning and development is a key element for the successful operation, management, and long-term sustainability of tourism destinations. Tourism stakeholders' solid knowledge and experiences in tourism management and industry, professional involvement and participation in tourism planning and development, and long-term community observation and interactions have played an important role in tourism destination management. A total of 646 usable questionnaires were collected from randomly selected tourism stakeholders in the state of Virginia. From the results of hypotheses tests, tourism stakeholders' preferences about tourism attractions/ resources development are a function of perceived tourism development impacts as well as place attachment. The more stakeholders' preference for developing tourism attractions/resources, the more likely they were to support destination competitive strategies such as marketing efforts and activities, and destination management organizations' role. An additional finding that was not hypothesized indicated that tourism stakeholders, who have perceived benefits from tourism development, particularly in its economic and cultural aspects, are likely to support enhancement strategies for destination competitiveness. The implications of these findings can be applied to the enhancement of tourism destination competitiveness. / Ph. D.

IKEA is a brand that is known around the world and because it features many markers in their products, operations, and marketing that showcase its country of origin, Sweden has gained worldwide recognition simultaneously. The tourism industry could benefit from this positive image that Sweden has gained through IKEA’s popularity, by marketing themselves among the brand’s consumers using that positive image. Recently, Visit Sweden, the national DMO of the said country, has developed the campaign ‘Discover the Originals’ that responds to IKEA’s link with Sweden and tries to include tourism in that image among consumers. This quantitative study aims to see whether such campaigns that respond to the product-country image of private companies are effective in impacting the travel intention of the companies’ consumers. The first research question aims to find out the impact of IKEA’s product-country image on the intention of Belgian IKEA customers to travel to Sweden. This will be analysed by interpreting the correlation between brand image and country image as the independent variable and travel intention as the dependent variable. The second research question on the other hand will evaluate whether the ‘Discover the Originals’ campaign that is developed by Visit Sweden to respond to IKEA’s strong relationship with its country of origin, is increasing intention to travel to Sweden. The study confirms the applicability of previous research on the specific case of Belgian IKEA customers, given that the positive product-country image of IKEA on other foreign markets was already supported. Using the results of an online questionnaire that was distributed in relevant Facebook groups with members that were residing in cities spread over Belgium, analyses were made and interpreted. This delivered results that are aligned with the findings from existing literature. Positive product-country image impacts visit intentions after being exposed to the campaign, which indicates that the campaign is in particular valuable when targeting IKEA customers as brand familiarity and -image play an important role in how the audience reacts to it. These results reveal the opportunity for DMOs and private companies to work together and strengthen each other’s brands while contributing to the further development of the country as a tourist destination.

The research of the past two decades in travel and tourism has demonstrated that tourism destination image is a valuable construct in investigating the destination selection process and behavior of travelers. Most studies of consumer decision making in tourism have investigated the relationship between image of a destination and preference or visitation intentions for the destination. As competition among tourism destinations is getting more intense, it becomes increasingly important to understand the dynamic structure of image by studying forces or influences contributing to destination image formation so that a more effective image creation and correction strategy can be articulated. In the last two decades, research in travel and tourism has investigated many important issues regarding the image concept and contributed to understanding of tourist destination image. However, although numerous researchers across different fields emphasized the importance of understanding the forces contributing to image formation process, it has not received much attention in travel and tourism studies. Building upon the works from several fields and disciplines such as consumer behavior and marketing, travel and tourism, environmental psychology and geography, this study developed and empirically tested a conceptual model of the determinants of tourist destination image (image formation process). A major finding of the study was that a tourist destination in1age is formed by both stimulus factors and travelers' characteristics. The image of a tourism destination is dynamic and developed by chains of influences. The findings of a path analysis indicated that variety and type of information sources used, age and education influence perceptual/cognitive evaluations of tourism destinations. The perceptual/cognitive eval uatiol1s and socio-psychological travel motivations together influence affective evaluations of tourism destinations. The perceptual/cognitive and affective evaluations, then. form an overall Image of tourism destinations. It was also found that the overall image was more likely influenced by affect than perceptual/cognitive evaluations and affect together. In other words, affect serves as an intervening variable between perceptual/cognitive evaluations and overall image. The study contributed to the theoretical advancement of destination linage formation in the field of travel and tourism. It also contributed to consumer behavior and marketing by providing a structural model by which a simultaneous empirical treatment of the elements influencing image was investigated. The results of this study provided important implications for strategic image management and can aid in designing and implementing marketing programs for creating and enhancing tourist destination images. They can also aid in tailoring images for specific target markets, positioning tourism destinations, and designing advertising and promotional programs. / Ph. D.

The aim of the thesis was a proposal to form a tourist information center and its location in the village of Tři Studně. Based on the analysis of supply and demand of the tourist destination offers a service that will provide visitors information center. For tourist information center have been proposed two alternatives. The first draft took advantage of the current meeting room of the Municipal Office at Tři Studně without modification, and it only added new equipment and technology . The second proposal is already associated with structural modifications of the room. Tři Studně are due to its abundant natural potential tourists visited in the summer and winter months. It forms one of the most Important Recreational Areas in Vysočina. Tři Studně in the TIC will be one of the most important elements of marketing communication of the village and its vicinity.