Configuring a Trust-based Inter-organizational Cooperation Network for Post-industrial Tourist Organizations on a Tourist Route

Abstract

The aim of the paper was to create a configuration model of an inter-organizational network for post-industrial tourist organizations. Nowadays, establishing organized and structured cooperation is necessary not only from a single organization’s perspective, which fights for survival on a highly competitive market, but also from the perspective of a whole touristic region. The quality and social responsibility of a regional touristic product is determined not by a single organization, but by their collective outcome. The main goal was achieved by the analysis of tourist sites, their function within the Industrial Monuments Route (IMR) in Poland, as a case for the conducted study. The authors used trust level indicators as determinants for designating inter-organizational relations in the wrought network model. Those relations concern various forms of cooperation that the researched organizations have selected during a structured interview and were willing to undertake under given conditions. The result is a multi-dimensional model of a cooperation network that can be implemented at IMR and used as a guideline for creating similar models for other thematic tourist routes.