The relevance of public-private partnerships in coopetition: empirical evidence from the tourism sector

The formation of coopetition is often triggered by a certain institutional context where the public sector pushes competing co-located companies to cooperate with each other. This situation is particularly important in the tourism sector where relevant public stakeholders support a collaborative attitude and practice among tourism businesses. In this paper, we focus on the role of the public sphere in creating the conditions for the private sector to shift from a constant sum to a variable sum game, wherein public-private partnerships can help private businesses to achieve win-win situations. More specifically, our comparative study shows that public-private relationships are crucial over time in order to strengthen coopetition thus contributing to better development and promotion of a tourism destination and to the improvement of the dialogue inside a business agglomeration.