Understanding the adoption of data-driven decision-making practices among Canadian DMOs

With the rapid developments in ICTs in recent years, destination management organizations (DMOs) have been increasingly expected to adopt data-driven decision-making practices towards fulfilling their role as destination managers. While data-driven decision-making offers a smarter approach to building more sustainable and competitive destinations, there remains a limited understanding surrounding its adoption in practice. Therefore, this study applied a mixed methods approach in efforts to identify the existing practices and barriers facing DMOs at each phase of Athamena and Houhamdi’s (2018) model of the data-driven decision-making process. The findings suggest that Canadian DMOs have been slow to engage in data-driven decision-making practices. Specifically, there remains a need to address the lack of data related to sustainability indicators, the quality of data sources, and the resource limitations faced by DMOs. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.