Developing institutional logics in the tourism industry through coopetition

Drawing on the concept of institutional logics, this study advances the coopetition research on tourism destinations. An inductive multi-case study approach is adopted to explore the evolution of coopetitive practices of four tour operators in Macau over the last decade. The findings indicate that actors in a tourism destination respond to the changes of institutional factors by adopting an institutional logic of coopetition, which include five key processes: exploiting, exploring, bridging, sharing and boundary spanning. This paper contributes to the nascent literature on coopetition in tourism destination studies by analyzing the dynamics of co-evolution between the multi-stakeholders’ changing logics of practice and the surrounding institutional environment. The implications of institutional logics and coopetition from a managerial perspective are also discussed.