Information quality and data collection methodologies in tourism management

Critical company decision-making about new product launches, brand marketing and communication activities often takes place in darkness because of the absence of a real knowledge on the status quo and on the consequences related to the implementation of strategic choices. It is frequently possible to notice the existence of managerial myths in decision-making that do not correspond to the real conditions of the market or the sector at all. Moreover, strategic choices are commonly based on recommendations that find their justification mainly in the principals’ convictions or in the organizational status quo. If this is true for a company, the analysis becomes more worrying if we take into consideration the tourism sector. In fact, tourism offers a product which can be defined an amalgam , a product constituted of many services provided by different actors. In such a scenario, National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) have the important role of organizing the tourist offer of the destination promoting events, supporting cooperation, keeping the public order, programming activities, promoting the destination and, last but not least, monitoring the statistics on tourism (tourists’ flows, tourist offer and so on) . This last competency is particularly delicate; if it is true that for a company monitoring the quality and quantity of customers is absolutely necessary in order to guarantee effectiveness and efficiency, for a destination these aspects become even more relevant as they concern a group of agents who cannot work independently but, because of the difference of their competencies, need to be helped to organize and articulate their offer