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A Destination's Embrace of Tourism Microentrepreneurship

For many decades, destination marketing organizations have evolved in their structure and in their programming, especially as targeted toward leisure travel and tourism markets. They changed their focus to internet communication, then to brand strategy and destination management, and most recently to address disruptions from the tourism online gig economy consisting of myriad microentrepreneurs, some sharing local experiences directly with tourists. This chapter relates how Raleigh, USA, and its tourism office have begun to embrace tourism microentrepreneurship through strategic planning efforts and specific programs of the last five years. It concludes with implications for how small and medium destinations can structure new programs, policies, and interactions to support marketplaces of tourism microentrepreneurs as part of holistic tourism-related economic development.