Tourism: Success Is a Matter of Networks

Rodolfo Baggio, faculty member of the Bocconi Master in Economics of Tourism, has successfully defended his PhD dissertation in Australia, at the School of Tourism of the University of Queensland. The dissertation, titled Network Analysis of a Tourism Destination earned him the Dean's Award for Outstanding Research Higher Degree Theses, reversed for those theses making essential contributions to their respective fields.

Baggio's idea is that a tourist destination can be described in terms of the networks of operators and multi-level relations among them: the topology of such networks determines the efficiency of flows of information and collaboration flows and, ultimately, whether a tourist destination is successful or not. Looking at the case of the Italian island of Elba, Baggio found that the network topology of operators' websites was a good proxy for the actual network.

In operational terms, since a network can be modified by the addition of news nodes or by new links between existing nodes, its topology can be influenced by local tourism policies. Elba is a case in point. Existing literature has highlighted the lack of collaboration among tourism operators there, and this is confirmed by Baggio, which has uncovered a network that has comparatively few relations and is inefficient in spreading information. However, any temptation of determinism should be resisted, since network complexity is such that given the same inputs, you obtain a non-calculable range of outputs. A network is an adaptive, constantly mutating system. Whoever is called to manage it must exhibit a similarly adaptive behavior.

Baggio has a degree in Physics from the University of Milano. For years he was a researcher in astrophysics, before switching to a career in IT, which has led him to collaborate with Magda Antonioli and the faculty team at the Bocconi Master in the Economics of Tourism.