Leadership in regional tourism governance : a Brazilian case study

This thesis critically examined and compared the leadership role of two Regional Tourism Organisations (RTOs) in Brazil which share the same geographical area, but which have adopted different tourism governance models and principles. Informed by an interpretive and social-constructionist approach incorporating 36 in-depth interviews, this study identified several capacities of the RTOs to lead, linked to transformational, distributed and contingency leadership theories. The study revealed key principles of governance have different influences on each RTO’s capacity to lead. The thesis presented an applied and theoretically informed conceptual leadership framework for researching regional destinations.