The Research Cluster on Tourism Destinations (NID) is focused on developing and implementing methodologies for monitoring the performance of tourism destinations in areas considered relevant from the point of view of competitiveness and sustainability; NID is open to the participation of all CiTUR members.
Mission: to ensure excellence in the development of applied research and assure the transfer of scientific knowledge in the field of tourism destinations’ competitiveness and sustainability, particularly in terms of planning, governance, strategic management, brand management and monitoring of tourism activities, in conjunction with public and private destination management entities, including the provision of specialized services to these entities.
Goals: to design, validate and supervise the implementation of tourism activity monitoring systems, appropriate to different geographical scales: local, regional, national and supranational; to contribute to the adoption of tourism destination governance models, aiming at improving their competitiveness and sustainability; to contribute to the definition and adoption of good practices in the field of research and management of information on tourism destinations; to support the creation and consolidation of observatories dedicated to the research on tourism destinations at a local, regional or national level; to support the development of technological solutions supporting the tourism activity of destinations, capable of facilitating the collection, processing and sharing of information; to position itself as a provider of information services of great added value to tourism destination management entities – that is, municipalities, intermunicipal communities, ERT’s (Tourism Regional Entities) and Turismo de Portugal – and sectoral associations operating in tourism.
