MODEL FOR ANALYSIS OF TOURISM OBSERVATORIES (TO) WITH THE CAPITAL SYSTEM (CS)

Tourism Observatories (TO) operate in several countries, having their implementationrecommended by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). Despiteits growing importance as a Destination Management Organization (DMO), TOhave still been poorly studied and research that sought to understand their natureand the relationships they develop with tourist destinations is rare. To contributeto overcoming this gap, a model for the analysis of TO was proposed based onthe Capital System (CS) and built from the study of 39 TO from 10 countries inEurope and Latin America. The research is exploratory-descriptive, used a mixedmethod in a convergent project that integrated qualitative and quantitative researchand covered content analysis, interviews, application of questionnaires bye-mail and survey. As a result, it presents a model for analysis validated with 29OT which identified the occurrence of configurations of TO and the relationshipsestablished by them with characteristics of the destinations in which they operate.In addition of contributing to a better theoretical understanding of the object, themodel also demonstrated potential to become a viable tool to assist governmentsand professionals in the sector to manage OT or their networks.