Once a shared vision is agreed upon, the next question is how the vision will be achieved and how best to organize action plans to be implemented. While every tourism destination is unique and has its own challenges and priorities, most tourism strategies tend to prioritize 5-6 main pillars of the strategy that we call strategic objectives or strategic goals. These tend to be focused around improving Policy/Coordination, Marketing, Product/Destination Development, Workforce Development, Sustainability and other topics that flow from the participatory planning process. After defining these main pillars, the next and most important step of the strategic planning process is to define the specific strategies to be implemented to achieve these goals. Individual strategies are the main components of the document and what provides the direction for the industry to realize the vision. Through stakeholder interviews and outcomes from the tourism planning workshop these strategies are identified and grouped under the corresponding goals. A description of each strategy is important to help everyone understand what is being proposed and why. The last and very important step is the creation of detailed action plans. These action plans are developed through working groups that include the public and private sector, conservation and community organizations, and other stakeholders. The key to action planning is aligning the action plan updating and reporting with the government’s own annual work planning and budgeting.
