"Yes, but I still have a policy to implement"
A senior leader in a national tourism authority once concluded a pretty in-depth conversation with me with that sentence.
What lay behind it was the sentiment that it was all well and good to find oneself fully agreeing with, and perhaps even a bit excited by, different ways to approach and measure tourism - ways that brought community wellbeing, environment and place into the frame, rather than visitor volume and revenue alone. The next morning, she would still have to walk back into the office and into her responsibility to deliver on a policy that measured her on a completely different set of things.
It was said in a tone of expectation rather than resignation. I sensed that she thought I might perhaps have an answer to the quandary she was experiencing. I let her down. In that moment, I didn’t fully have the language for what I wanted to express. I wanted to share something positive and motivational, something to acknowledge that what we had been talking about was certainly stretching, yet ultimately possible. I felt she needed to hear that.
I didn’t want to be glib and say what she wanted to hear. I didn’t want to disrespect or diminish the true conflict she was experiencing. Yet, the only language within my reach would have framed the existing model of tourism as 'bad' and the aspirational regenerative model as 'good'.
I knew it was not that black and white. It has just never been that straightforward.
I have heard versions of the sentiment 'Yes, but I still have a policy to implement' many times since. It has weighed on my mind a little. Why? Well, without the language, we can't even really have the conversation.
So I have applied myself to naming the point we are at now, the inherent tension in it, and the language, models and framework through which senior leaders can credibly discuss it and think forward.
The result is a White Paper, The Place Paradigm: A New Lens for Tourism Leadership, which I am sharing this month.
If you are a senior leader in public sector tourism, some, if not all, of what follows in this article may sound familiar.
A Familiar Tension
At some point recently, you probably made or wanted to make a decision you knew was right for your destination and then found yourself having to justify it in language that wasn't designed to express it.
If you've been in this sector for any length of time, you'll recognise the feeling. For most of the last few decades, the questions you have been measured on have been clear and consistent: visitor numbers, visitor spend, occupancy, market share. The questions being asked of you now have expanded to include areas as diverse as community wellbeing, environmental integrity, cultural continuity and housing. Yet the dashboards you're held to, and the language your ministers and funders are using, haven't shifted at the same pace.
Most tourism leaders are sitting in that gap, seemingly with no real way to talk about it.
Most of the responses available so far still operate inside the existing definition of success. Dispersal strategies, season extension, community liaison, inclusion initiatives, environmental scorecards, sustainability reporting frameworks and business supports all have a place. In many cases, they have really helped.
Essentially though, they are additional indicators layered onto your existing dashboards. The deeper question i.e. what success itself actually means for the places that tourism relies on, remains unspoken.
The Cost of Getting it Wrong
For many senior leaders, this is a personal tension.
There is a real professional risk in expanding beyond the traditional metrics before the wider system is ready to support you. Move too far, too fast, and risk being perceived as idealistic, not commercially savvy, as having gone soft on growth.
At the same time, doing nothing carries its own risk. Destinations are changing, community expectations are rising, and the political ground is shifting. Leaders who don't navigate that shift now may find themselves further behind later.
Most senior leaders in this space are caught somewhere in between. While they know instinctively that something needs to change, they still have to face the board and brief the minister. They still have to build a set of team and destination targets with origins in an outdated set of assumptions.
The Place Paradigm: A New Lens for Tourism Leadership
This month, I am excited to finally publish a White Paper, The Place Paradigm: A New Lens for Tourism Leadership. It is my response to the gap I have been describing, and the result of several years thinking it through. It offers language and a framework for the tension senior leaders are sitting in.
It includes The Metrics-Mandate Gap, which names the structural mismatch between what leaders are being asked to deliver and how they are being measured. It describes the role of The Navigator Leader as tourism transitions into a new era. The Stewardship Spectrum allows you to identify the current phase of that transition. The Five Dimensions of Place Vitality offer a way to think about how a wider understanding of success can be measured.
I offer it in full awareness of the scale of what senior tourism leaders are being asked to hold, and with respect for the reality of the constraints around them. It is one contribution to a conversation that is still in its early stages, and it does not resolve the tension. I'm afraid that's going to be with us for a while yet.
If, the next time someone says some version of 'yes, but I still have a policy to implement', this paper helps to provide words that escaped me on the day I first heard it, then it will have done a useful piece of work.
The paper is available to read or download here.
I'd love to know if it resonates with you, and also if it doesn't. Email me at [email protected] if you feel like sharing your thoughts.
Tina O'Dwyer is the Founder and CEO of The Tourism Space and creator of The Place Paradigm®. Contact Tina at [email protected]. If you haven't already, sign up to receive this monthly article direct to your inbox www.thetourismspace.com/signup.
