This paper deals with partnerships, clusters and innovation systems from a governance perspective. Very little tourism research has used this perspective, and relatively little attention has been brought to the two latter of the mentioned models. It is argued that the governance perspective makes sense when dealing with these models in the tourist destination context. As will be shown, the models draw attention to different features of governance and even suggest different forms of governance and government involvement. It also concludes that the partnership perspective makes sense in basically all tourist destinations, while fewer qualify for the cluster model, and even fewer for the innovation system model. Empirical observations are drawn from different studies of the Swedish ski resort of Are.