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The tourism marketing literature highlightedthe importance of properly understanding the environment of a destination inorder to develop and implement an efficient plan. This work aims at providing afurther understanding of the importance of institutional coordination for theimplementation of proactive strategies to develop a tourism destination, focusingon the opportunities arising from the FIFA World Cup in 2014 in Brazil. JoãoPessoa, a Brazilian northwest city, was chosen as the target for this study. Aqualitative approach, based on seven in-depth interviews to public and privaterepresentatives were conducted. The results from this exploratory research provide a further understanding of the microenvironment of João Pessoa tourism planning and development and pointout the need for an integrative planning of the destination.