Marketing consortia represent an increasingly popular means by which tourism
organisations are able to accomplish collective and organisational marketing
goals. However, few case studies have been published that address marketing
issues in inter-organisational collaborative initiatives generally, and more
specifically the reconciliation of intra-sector competition within marketing
consortia. Within the context of inland waterway hire-boat holidays in Britain
this paper explores the collaborative behaviour of two contemporary marketing
consortia: the Inland Waterways consortium and the Drifters consortium. The
paper compares and contrasts their respective approaches to the marketing of
inland waterway hire-boat holidays in Britain and the means by which they
attempt to reconcile intra-sector competition. Information derived for the paper
originates from two primary face-to-face interviews and two previous studies
published by the authors.1 The paper concludes by discussing the
basic principles of collaboration which arguably should be met in order to
maximise mutual gain from membership of marketing consortia.