How Tourism Policy Co-Creation Enhances Stakeholder Trust in Destinations: The Mediating Role of Institutional Legitimacy Perception

Abstract

In the last ten years, co-creation of tourism policies has been acquiring more and more importance because of its beneficial contribution to sustainable destination development and collaboration of stakeholders in the tourism sector. The paper examines how institutional legitimacy perception mediates the relationship between co-creation of tourism policy and stakeholder trust in destinations. Our hypotheses in this study were: institutional legitimacy perception is a mediator between tourism policy co-creation and stakeholder trust. The results were based on structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis of data gathered on a sample of 468 tourism stakeholders in Jordan, and these were the policymakers, tour operators, destination managers, and hospitality executives. The findings indicated that co-creation of tourism policy had a positive and direct relationship with stakeholder trust in a destination and institutional legitimacy perception. The results also indicated that institutional legitimacy perception positively and directly predicted stakeholder trust in destinations. In addition, institutional legitimacy perception was found to significantly mediate the relationship between tourism policy co-creation and stakeholder trust. The results are well substantiated by Stakeholder Theory and Collaborative Governance Theory as they emphasize that the perceived institutional credibility and the increased trust between tourism stakeholders are the results of inclusive and participatory tourism policy-making. These findings confirm the significance of co-creation mechanisms in policies and enhanced institutional legitimacy in promoting sustainable tourism governance in Jordan. The research has practical implications on tourism policymakers and destination management organizations aiming to realize collaborative governance, stakeholder engagement and destination trust to develop the tourism sector in the long term.