Exploring institutions’ perceived roles in regional tourism development: an institutional thickness approach

In recent decades, commitment to tourism as a development strategy has grown across Latin America. However, despite being praised as an economic and social catalyst in various regions, developing tourism appropriately requires a dense institutional environment marked by leadership, trust, and governance. Against that background, we aimed to analyse institutions’ perceived role in regional tourism development and perceived key factors of such development in relation to four dimensions of institutional thickness. To that end, we conducted a cluster analysis of data from 2000 to 2015 representing 18 institutions’ perceptions of tourism in Colombia’s Department of Antioquia. Key identified factors perceived are, particularly, the exclusive or partial focus of institutions with the tourism value chain, the relationship with technology centres, the importance of spaces for collective representation, and the acknowledgment of infrastructure as a principal investment for regional tourism development.