Benchmarking Utilization in Regional
Planning of Tourism Development
Martin Luštický, Martin Musil
University of Economics, Prague
Faculty of Management in Jindrichuv Hradec
Research Projects
• IGA 06/2010 “Draft of a system for evaluation of the
regional programme documents in tourism“
– Draft new complex procedure which enables local
governments to evaluate quality of their tourism
development strategies
• IGA 05/2011 “Evaluation of the tourism regional
planning results“
– Integrate new evaluation criteria into pre-defined
evaluation procedure
– Apply evaluation procedure in practice
Tourism Destination Competitiveness
• Existing and potential visitation to any destination is
linked to destination’s overall competitiveness
• Indicators of destination competitiveness
– Situational Conditions – such as competitive environment, safety,
global environment
– Endowed Resources – such as nature, culture
– Created Resources – such as tourism infrastructure, shopping,
entertainment
– Supporting Factors – such as quality of service, hospitality
– Destination Management – DM organization, destination
policy and planning, HR development
Benchmarking in Tourism
• Benchmarking in tourism can be classified into these spheres
– Benchmarking of non-profit oriented tourism organizations
• National or regional tourist boards/organizations
• Attractions operated by public authorities or other forms of non-profit oriented businesses
(e.g. museums, galleries, theatres, operas, etc.)
– Benchmarking of profit-oriented tourism businesses
• Accommodation suppliers
• Restaurants
• Tour operators and travel agencies
• Other profit-oriented tourism service providers
– Destination Benchmarking
• National benchmarking
• Regional benchmarking
• Local (rural or urban) benchmarking
Benchmarking as a Evaluation Technique of
Tourism Strategies
• Benchmarking method can be
ranked among comparative
evaluation technique
• Benchmarking is considered as an
important tool for enhancing the
quality by learning process
• It has the ability to support an
achievement of sustainable
competitive advantage
• Benchmarking can be described
as a structured process by which
an organization seeks to identify
and replicate “best practices” to
enhance its strategic position
Research Method
• There is one important problem in the sphere of regional planning –
stipulation of objective criteria for making an evaluation. These
criteria should be derived from general requirements on a quality of
evaluated subjects.
• The evaluation process can be described as a comparison of the
evaluated subject’s state with pre-defined criteria which create socalled
comparison level.
• The basis for tourism development strategies evaluation is
comprised by three general requirements (so-called quality spheres)
– the requirement of strategy suitability with a regard to the strategic
position of the region
– the requirement of strategy acceptability for key stakeholders
– the requirement of strategy feasibility
Research Method: Step 1 and 2
• Elaboration of the quality spheres into the
partial requirements
– The initial set was made with the help of an
extensive literature review
– This set was verified and reviewed by the
key regional actors with the help of the
Likert scale
• Transfer of the requirements into the
measurable criteria
– The method of Quality Function
Deployment was used as a transfer
principle
– The importance of concrete criterion was
derived from point evaluation of the
requirement importance (0 – 5 points) and
from point evaluation of the intensity of the
link between the requirement and derived
criterion (0 – 1 point)
– The importance of the criterion is given by
this formula
Research Method: Step 3 and 4
• Evaluation procedure
– Each criterion was assigned by the key
characteristics which should be reached by
this criterion
– The evaluator made an assessment of the
criterion fulfilment by tourism
development strategies on the rating scale
enabling to assess how intensively the
criterion meet the key characteristics
• Evaluation method
– Distributive phase – the partial evaluations
from the individual evaluators are
converted into a common table
– Delegated phase – the evaluators may
transfer their relative vote strength
according to the individual assessment of
own skills, knowledge or experience
necessary for the evaluation
– Synthetic phase – the partial evaluation is
adjusted to the resulting relative vote
strength of individual evaluators
Research Method: Step 5
• The aim of the evaluation process is to select the best regional development
strategies on the basis of objective and unified criteria.
– The Kepner-Tregoe Decision Analysis was used as a suitable decision-making
tool
• Selection of the strategies is done through the point value of the partial
evaluation of individual criterion, its importance, with a respect to the
relative vote strength of individual evaluators
• The overall quality of tourism development strategies can be expressed as
the sum of the resulting values of the individual criteria.
The Examples of Evaluative Criteria
• Strategy suitability (total 15)
– Target groups are described in the document
– Document takes into account the impact of selected global factors
– Document deals with internal resources to achieve the desired future state
– Document contains a clear synthesis of the results of external and internal analysis
– Objectives correspond with the SMART parameters
– Arrangements for achieving the vision are suggested in the document
• Strategy acceptability (total 14)
– Arrangements support the quality evaluation systems
– Arrangements support co-operation and co-ordination of tourism subjects
– Arrangements support environmentally friendly behaviour
– Arrangements support wellness and relaxation activities
– Arrangements support on-line reservation systems
• Strategy feasibility (total 4)
– Document identifies the necessary resources to implement the proposed activities
– Document sets a timetable for implementation of proposed activities
– Responsibility of individual entities for implementation of proposed activities is set
– Document proposes a system of monitoring of implementation of proposed activities
Pilot Application
• The following strategies were randomly chosen as
a test sample
– North East England Tourism Strategy (Great Britain)
– Tourism Development Strategy in the South Bohemian
Region (Czech Republic)
– Strategy of tourism development of the Bratislava
region (Slovak republic)
• The evaluation process was made by four
evaluators – members of the research team
Overall Results
• The evaluation based on three main requirements points out the
Czech tourism development strategy as the best document.
• However, even it can take examples of good practices from other
strategies – such as
– compiling the SWOT analysis
– supporting the modern communication tools
– assuring the successful implementation of the strategy itself
Examples of the Best Practices
• Strategy suitability
– Well-defined initial conditions, including linkages with other strategies
at the state level (CZE)
– Well-elaborated internal and external analysis (SVK)
– Well-defined SMART parameters of the goals (CZE)
• Strategy acceptability
– Excellent communication with the visitors (GBP)
– Support of the on-line information and reservation systems (SVK)
– Promotion of sustainable forms of tourism and active holidays (CZE)
• Strategy feasibility
– Identification the necessary resources for strategy implementation
(GBP)
– Detail schedule for strategy realization (GBP)
Next Steps of the Research
• Implementation of the evaluation process to a userfriendly
online application
• Utilization of this application for benchmarking
process of the selected European tourism destinations
• Creation of the international benchmarking database
of the best examples from tourism management
• Linking the results of our evaluation with the level of
tourism destination competitiveness
– How strong is the connection between planning quality and
destination competitiveness?
– Are there any typical “planning patterns“ of successful
destinations?
Thank you for your attention
and have a nice day!
Martin Luštický
Department of Public Sector Management
Faculty of Management in Jindrichuv Hradec
University of Economic, Prague
e-mail: Lusticky@fm.vse.cz