Stakeholder Engagement

“Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand.”

– Chinese Proverb

Tourism stakeholder engagement is a critical component in developing and maintaining the alignment of tourism stakeholders. Effectively run engagements facilitate the sharing of diverse perspectives, priorities, and challenges. It is only through the inclusion of multi-stakeholder collaborations that the visitor economy can align and position the destination to reach its highest potential.

Destinate Consultants are committed to meaningful engagements with both the community and stakeholders. Every Destinate consultant has an extensive background in tourism stakeholder management and engagement—we have guided hundreds of tourism stakeholder engagement sessions. We will ensure all key stakeholders are represented, from local municipalities, chambers, economic development agencies, members, tourism operators, organizations, and the community-at-large to regional, provincial, and federal-level interactions.

When we engage stakeholders, we believe in being transparent and present during those interactions and then circling back later in the process to share our results. This commitment is articulated in Destinate’s Closed Loop Feedback process. We move our clients through a 5-step, cyclical process to fluidly engage our stakeholders: (1) plan goals, methods, and audience, (2) solicit meaningful feedback, (3) listen for key themes and findings, (4) incorporate feedback in plans, and (5) communicate results with participants.

Engagement includes a mix of qualitative and quantitative engagement methods:

Quantitative

We often begin engagement with an online or in-person survey. Surveys help gauge general opinions, identify key themes, and uncover areas where we can dive deeper during the qualitative sessions.

Destinate will develop, circulate, promote, collect, and interpret survey data.

During the Plan Creation phase, surveys help support key recommendations with quantifiable evidence for initiatives.

Qualitative

We put a heavy focus on qualitative engagement. Significant value is uncovered by taking the time to talk to your partners and understand their unique challenges and opportunities. We do a mix of focus groups (i.e., small group sessions with questions that are facilitated by one of our guides) and one-on-one interviews (i.e., casual, coffee-like discussions). Qualitative engagement is done both in person and virtually.

Destinate will manage the entire qualitative process including inviting, scheduling and reminders, planning, facilitating, engaging, recording, and following up with attendees.

Key findings from the qualitative sessions often identify critical components of strategies and specific initiatives to focus on within our plans.

The mix of quantitative/qualitative and virtual/in-person engagement methods come together to support you in obtaining buy-in from your stakeholders on your future plans and activities.

Destinate also sees tourism stakeholder engagement as an opportunity to educate and inspire your tourism community. We bring in industry best practices, research, and a third-party perspective to help stakeholders zoom out and imagine the future possibilities for small destinations.