5 Leadership Shifts to Strengthen Place Vitality in Your Tourism Destination

This summer, a story from the Irish sporting world resonated for me beyond the boundaries of sport. A respected commentator made a direct link between the future of his local club and how tourism is managed in the surrounding area. His point was simple: marketing success and visitor numbers have not demonstrably translated into community vitality. (Check out our LinkedIn post about this, with the article text in the comments )

The message is universal: beautiful places don’t thrive just because people visit or admire them. Across regions and cultures, it’s becoming obvious that welcoming visitors into a destination is no guarantee of genuine vitality for the communities that call that destination home.

Many sustainable tourism voices frame tourism as the villain, causing damage to people and places. For some places, that is the case, and the pressures of overtourism are visible and real. However, for many towns and regions, tourism is not overwhelming their capacity. The issue is more subtle and, in some ways, more challenging: tourism is happening alongside communities, without really connecting with or strengthening daily life.

This disconnect between visitor activity and community vitality is what’s prompting a shift in remit for public sector tourism leaders. It highlights that tourism’s role cannot be measured by visitor numbers alone. Place vitality - the extent to which a place supports daily life, work, and community wellbeing - is moving from an implicit hope to an explicit responsibility of policy and strategy. It is gradually becoming a Key Performance Indicator in its own right.

Tourism leadership from now on is not only about growing markets or extending the season. It is also about ensuring that the future of a place (its resilience, liveability, and vitality) sits at the heart of tourism decision-making.

Five Uncomfortable Realities

In recent years, through programmes, partnerships, and lived experience across different destinations, five realities stand out. They are not comfortable naming, yet they reflect what is happening on the ground.

1. Visitor numbers can rise while vitality falls. It is possible to grow arrivals without strengthening daily life. More visitors do not automatically mean cafés stay open year-round or housing remains affordable for workers.
2. Vitality depends on the basics. Services like childcare, public transport, healthcare, and metrics such as school enrolments and membership of local clubs matter as much to place vitality as attractions and festivals.
3. Seasonality is a liveability problem as much as a demand problem. The off-season doesn’t only mean fewer visitors. It means residents navigating shuttered shops, reduced services, and hollowed-out towns.
4. Networks are infrastructure. Physical projects such as new centres, trails, or signage are visible and attractive. However, without the social infrastructure of trust, coordination, and shared purpose, their impact often falls short.
5. What we measure determines what survives. If success is defined only in terms of visitor revenue or bednights, then those are the outcomes that will be prioritised. Other dimensions of vitality, such as community life and service continuity, risk being ignored simply because they aren’t counted.

Five Leadership Shifts

Recognising these realities also acknowledges where the real opportunity for leadership now lies. Here are five shifts that can help public sector leaders move from parallel systems of “tourism” and “community” to a more integrated sense of place vitality.

1. Balance visitor KPIs with vitality KPIs. Alongside the numbers on arrivals and spend, start tracking indicators of liveability. These might include winter service availability, dwell time in town centres, or participation in local clubs. These enhance rather than replace existing measures and tell a fuller story of what success looks like.
2. Put services into the tourism equation. Services like transport, childcare, and community facilities are often seen as outside tourism. Yet they are central to both visitor experience and community vitality. Bringing these sectors into tourism conversations and budgets creates alignment between the needs of visitors and residents.
3. Strengthen resilience through seasonal rhythms. Every place has its natural ebb and flow, and residents often value quieter periods. Perhaps the leadership challenge isn’t to eliminate seasonality. Perhaps it’s to make sure the rhythms are healthy - that services can withstand them, that workers aren’t over-stretched in peaks, and that the quieter times don’t undermine vitality.
4. Invest in the convening role. Healthy local networks don’t appear by accident. They need someone to hold the space, keep people at the table, and drive momentum. Funding a convening or backbone role within destination stewardship networks is as critical as funding physical infrastructure. Without it, projects lose traction and local ownership.
5. Finance shared assets visibly. Tourism should be seen to contribute to the shared essentials of place - parks, paths, pitches, public toilets, and cultural spaces. When communities see that tourism is helping to fund the things they rely on, confidence and trust grow.

The Leadership Choice

Many of these shifts can be piloted locally, with modest resources and a commitment to transparency. Importantly, none of them demand that tourism leaders become responsible for solving every community challenge. Place vitality will not emerge automatically from visitor activity. It is a leadership choice to make it visible, measurable, and central. The choice is to signal clearly that vitality matters and to ensure that tourism is an explicit part of strengthening it. It is a choice that sends a powerful message: that tourism is not only welcoming visitors, but actively contributing to the life of the place.