Strategic flexibility provides an approach for tourism destinations to respond more readily to turbulent environments. It is a management method that can assist tourism suppliers to meet the challenges of achieving competitive advantage. The paper also explores the importance that is accorded to the facilitators or drivers of strategic flexibility by Slovenian tourism industry stakeholders along with their performance in actioning these drivers. Importance performance analysis suggests the priority strategic actions to reduce the risk of strategic drift. The paper concludes with an assessment of the implications of these findings for emerging destinations generally. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.