Destination Management through Organizational Ambidexterity: A Study of Haitian Enclaves

Abstract

Tourism can serve to regenerate post-colonial, post-conflict and post-disaster destinations (PCCDs), and national governments and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) have a central role in this. They find themselves straddling the possibility of consolidating tourism situations with seemingly safe, known, predictable steps or alternatively taking more ambitious risk-prone, less tried and uncertain approaches. This choice of action can be reflected in the respective exploitative and explorative dimensions of strategic conceptual framework of organizational ambidexterity (OA). This paper provides a conceptual analysis using the lens of OA to examine these dynamics and focuses on the specific case of Haiti set against the backdrop of the Caribbean regional context. The study identifies a range of OA effects in relation to tourist enclaves. In particular, the paper argues for less segregation and separation between tourist and local populations and a need for DMOs to espouse more exploitative-explorative postures. In terms of wider implications, the argument suggests that other Caribbean economies might learn lessons from the discussion of the Haitian case.