Abstract
Theories and concepts on destination management, leadership and governance have positively shaped the development of touristic destinations. The gained insights are comprehensive and include important findings on how to better understand how destinations work. However, changing political, social and technological dynamics put methods and instruments of traditional destination management and governance under scrutiny and continuing review. Currently, destination research focuses on restricted disciplinary perspectives, where only a limited number of disciplines are considered. Moreover, decision-making processes at a destination level are mainly developed with traditional stakeholders, where participatory approaches tend to be neglected. A transdisciplinary approach that could enrich the perspective on touristic destinations allows to combine destination concepts with approaches from design research. The pursued research question is: how do approaches from design help in expanding traditional perspectives on tourism destinations? The findings will show how adopting a design perspective to destination research leads to a fresh understanding of problems and to the elaboration of innovative and participatory solutions.