I stopped accepting visitor-growth targets as the centrepiece of tourism strategy work after I watched a coastal board celebrate a record arrival year in the same month its beach infrastructure repair backlog doubled. The celebration was real; so was the backlog. That gap between headline numbers and destination health is why I now open every strategy engagement by separating what the destination is optimising for from what it is merely counting. What follows is the case I make to sponsors, the alternatives I put on the table, and the drafting sequence I use when a board wants a strategy it can actually defend.
Volume targets hide the constraints that matter
My core claim is that a strategy built around arrival and revenue growth targets will be internally consistent and practically useless, because the targets describe outcomes rather than choices. The mechanism is that growth targets do not tell an operator, a planner, or a finance committee which trade-off to make when two uses of the same waterfront collide. I have sat in rooms where every stakeholder agreed with the growth number and none of them agreed on what should be built to serve it.
Evidence from my own project files backs the diagnosis. Strategies that opened with a volume target spent their action sections on generic promotion, while strategies that opened with a distribution or capacity constraint produced specific, fundable workstreams. The comparison I draw for clients is between a document that says ten per cent more visitors and one that says the same visitor spend with thirty per cent more retained locally and a dry-season bed occupancy ceiling. Only the second one changes Tuesday-morning decisions.
What it means for a sponsor is a drafting rule I now write into terms of reference. No strategy document may set a headline volume target in the first section. If a target appears at all, it appears after the constraint analysis, as a consequence rather than an ambition.
Measure distribution, not just totals
The second move I make is to replace total-based reporting with a small set of distribution metrics, because totals can improve while the destination weakens. The mechanism is averaging: rising high-season numbers can mask a collapsed shoulder season, a concentrated spend in two districts, and operator margins falling under commission pressure. Averages survive board packs; distributions tell you who is being left out.
I keep the dashboard short on purpose, and I ask finance teams to source it from data they already collect rather than from a new survey no one will maintain. Four indicators are enough to change a board conversation; twelve indicators are enough to bury it.
| Metric | Why I track it | Collection burden |
|---|---|---|
| Share of spend retained locally | Detects leakages through imported supply | Low, sampled operator survey twice a year |
| Shoulder versus peak occupancy spread | Shows whether growth is seasonal strain | Low, lodging tax or registry data |
| District-level visitor nights | Reveals geographic concentration | Medium, needs registration coverage |
| Median operator margin proxy | Flags margin compression under platforms | Medium, voluntary panel |
The table ends the habit of reporting a single success number. When boards see peak growth beside a flat shoulder season and a falling retention share, the conversation shifts from promotion volume to product and calendar design, which is where I want it.
Scenarios instead of a single forecast
Third argument: strategy documents that rest on one five-year forecast are fragile in a sector where fuel prices, airline capacity, and climate shocks move faster than planning cycles. The mechanism is that a single forecast smuggles in assumptions nobody stress-tests, so when the world moves the strategy has no prepared response. I replace the forecast with two or three scenarios, each carrying a different operating posture for the destination.
The scenario set I use most often in temperate and coastal destinations has three members, and I define them before any action planning so the actions can be traced back to a world state. The point is not forecast accuracy. The point is that each posture can be costed and defended on its own terms.
- Steady demand with constrained capacity: posture is yield management, quality standards, and infrastructure catch-up rather than promotion.
- Accelerated demand with thin infrastructure: posture is phased access controls, investment sequencing, and explicit resident protections.
- Shocks and interruption: posture is contingency cash flow for operators, communication protocols, and product diversification away from single markets.
What it means for a board is that the strategy survives leadership turnover, because the actions are justified by conditions rather than by the preferences of the drafting team. I have handed scenario-linked plans to successor teams twice, and in both cases the new directors kept the posture logic even as they changed the marketing agency.
Who has to agree for the strategy to survive
My fourth claim is that stakeholder alignment is not a consultation ritual but a structural requirement, and that most failed strategies failed at sign-off rather than at design. The mechanism is veto power: in tourism destinations, planning departments, environment agencies, utility operators, and large private landowners each hold informal vetoes, and a strategy that treats them as an audience rather than as co-authors will be blocked or diluted after approval. I map veto players before drafting and give each of them one explicit concession they can point to in the final text.
Evidence from my own engagements is consistent. Strategies co-signed by the utilities and planning authority in the drafting phase reached implementation faster than strategies presented as finished products, even when the co-signed versions were less ambitious on paper. Ambition that cannot clear the veto map is not ambition, it is a press release.
The practical step is a written concession log during drafting: for each veto player, the issue they raised, the clause that addresses it, and the residual disagreement that remains on record. The log shortens approval meetings from months to weeks, which is the real currency in board-level work.
A drafting sequence that works under real constraints
The sequence I run is fixed, and I compress it to ninety days when a board needs a defensible document inside one political season. Days one to twenty go to constraint analysis and scenario definition, with the distribution dashboard agreed in parallel. Days twenty-one to fifty go to posture selection and the concession log, with veto players in the room rather than on a mailing list. Days fifty-one to seventy go to action costing and phasing, so that every action carries an owner and a budget line. Days seventy-one to ninety go to red-team review, where I invite a sceptical finance officer to attack the draft before the board does.
The implication for anyone commissioning tourism strategy development this year is simple and slightly uncomfortable. If your drafting process cannot show me the constraint analysis, the scenario postures, and the concession log, you are not buying a strategy, you are buying a document. The next concrete step is to schedule the constraint workshop first, before any agency pitch, and to make attendance by finance and planning non-negotiable. Strategies that start in that room get built; strategies that start in a design studio get shelved.