he destination as the area of movement of guests during their stay often leads to a cooperation among different tourism organizations and destinations: on the one hand, the co‐operation is necessary to be able to offer the products demanded by different guests, on the other hand, it is necessary to be able to guarantee a sensible appearance to the market. With an empirical research carried out in 1999 and 2000, the European Academy Bolzano took the Italian regional and sub‐regional tourism organizations into consideration to evaluate the progress in managing the destination Italy. Rigidity of the organizational structures, little cooperation and integration as well as insufficient market resources are some of the main results. Further developments in change management, stakeholder management, branding, and the setting of clear and measurable goals are some of the issues analyzed. In consideration of an analysis of the Italian regions with regard to their actual politics of destination development the paper concludes with the proposal of a new model of tourism organizational structure based on networks and on the distinction between territorializable basic tasks and deterritorializable product/market tasks. This paper is a conceptional work relevant for traditional destinations and valid as a case study.