Evaluation of Tourism Management and Leadership Development Activities

Tourism and Management Leadership Development Activities (TMLDA) was developed and delivered by Scottish Enterprise (SE) to support management and leadership development in the industry. TMLDA comprises three distinct elements: the Tourism Management Development Programme (TMDP), composed of a range of events and conferences; the tourism ebusiness workshops, delivered in partnership with the Scottish Tourism Forum; and Leading Service Excellence (LSE), a course on customer service delivered by licensed training providers. The evaluation aimed to review these activities over the period April 2005 to January 2009 and assess their effectiveness against their targets.

The methodology comprised: a review of existing documents; analysis of participant information and feedback; consultations; and surveys of attendees and non-attendees.

The programme itself was found to have met the original targets and objectives set. It attracted 3,064 attendances from 846 organisations. Of these around two thirds are from the private sector with 555 businesses and 1,395 unique individuals attending any aspect of the programme. The LSE was run only 2-3 times due to its current delivery structure. Surveys undertaken with private sector businesses attending the programme revealed that the majority of attendees found it to have had a positive effect on their business, although they were unable to quantify the impact in terms of economic benefits. The evaluation concluded that the TMDP and ebusiness workshop elements of the TLMDA have met their objectives; however the delivery structure of LSE has been ineffective.

It is recommended that TLMDA is continued with a number of improvements, including: clearer objectives and priorities; a framework for all SE tourism activities; programmes should be undertaken within the wider implementation context; an increase of penetration into target markets; changes to the delivery structure and management; reduction in costs; and a more structured evaluation and monitoring framework.