The paper provides an overview of mainly foreign theoretical knowledge of and approaches to the issue of destination governance that can be considered as a specific form of governance inspired by the experience of management and corporate governance. The concept of destination governance, characterized by cooperation and relationships between stakeholders in tourism, is presented in the context of the institutional line of regional development theories. Institutional approaches explain the elements of competitiveness, main sources of which are primarily regionally specific, mostly soft factors (Blažek, 2012). In this context, the paper focuses on the network theory, regional innovation systems and clusters. There are also mentioned other approaches focusing on the linkages between economic entities and other participants in regional development (e.g. regional embeddedness). In conclusion, the article also presents a set of methods that are used by authors in their surveys in these areas.