Strategy for Tourism
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Part 4
Unit 10
Strategy
Preparation,
Resource Planning
and Structures
Reading
Book
Ch
Tribe, J, (2010) Strategy for Tourism, Goodfellow
Publishers, Oxford.
10
Capon, C. (2008) Understanding Strategic
Management, Prentice Hall: Hemel Hempstead.
10
Tribe, J. (2005) The Economics of Recreation, Leisure
and Tourism, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford.
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Johnson, G., Scholes, K., and Whittington, R. (2008)
Exploring Corporate Strategy, Prentice Hall: Hemel
Hempstead.
12.13
Part 4: Strategic
Implementation
 The final stage of tourism corporate strategy is strategic
implementation. By the end of part 4 it should be possible to
construct a plan to operationalise a strategy for a tourism
organisation, systematically monitor that strategy and create
a comprehensive strategy document.
 Strategic implementation follows logically from the previous
three stages where an appropriate strategy has been
selected from a number of options after a comprehensive
situational analysis of the tourism organisation.
 Chapter 10 discusses the detail of implementation in terms
of financial, physical and human resources.
 Chapter 11 examines the management of change and
reviews methods of control and evaluation of strategy.
 Chapter 12 concludes the book. At its centre is a guide on
how to write and present a strategy document and this is
followed by a look at turnaround and crisis strategies
Learning Outcomes
After studying this chapter and related
materials you should be able to understand:
 Resource planning
 Formulation of a coordinating plan
 Design of an organisational structure
 Issues in organisational design
and critically evaluate, explain and apply the
above concepts.
Case Study 10: The London
Olympics 2012
 In 2005 the Games of the XXXth Olympiad for 2012
were officially awarded to London.
 In terms of funding the London 2012 Organising
Committee has budgeted about £2bn for the staging
of the Games. It receives most its funding from the
International Olympics Committee and by its own
revenue generation through sponsorship, ticket sales
and merchandising. On the other hand the budget
needed by the Olympic Delivery Authority to provide
the infrastructure is around £9.5bn the sources of
this are as follows:
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Central Government £5,975 million
National Lottery £2,175 million
Greater London Authority £925 million
London Development Agency £250 million
Building the 2012 Olympic
Stadium
Plate 10 Building logistics of the London 2012 Olympic stadium
Strategic Planning
Framework: 1
Introduction
 Executive Summary
summary of main points of report
recommendations (proposed strategy)
Mission
 Nature of Business
defining the business of the organisation
identifying key strategic business units
 Missions and Goals
statement of mission of organisation
objectives set
Strategic Planning
Framework: 2
 Strategic Analysis
 Analysis of capability
 Evaluation of product portfolio
 Resource Audit (availability/effectiveness/efficiency)
 Analysis of external Environment
 CPEST factors
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Trends in competitive environment
Trends in political environment
Trends economic environment
Trends sociocultural environment
Trends technological Environment
 SWOT summary and analysis
 Strategic Choice
 An outline of alternative strategies, directions and methods
 An evaluation of the alternative strategies under review
 The proposed strategy, direction and method
Strategic Planning
Framework: 3
Strategic Implementation
 Planning
Resource Implications of strategy
Network analysis for strategy
Review of organisational structure
 Monitoring
Setting and measuring objectives and key tasks
Evaluation of strategy (assumptions testing
and monitoring financial or other targets)
Resource Planning
The evaluation stage of the strategy process
involved analysis of the feasibility of an option
in terms of finance and availability of
resources. At the implementation stage,
resource planning is concerned with
 identification of resources
 resource fit, and
 formulation of a co-ordinating plan
Identification of resources
Physical resources
 A change in strategic direction will generally require
adjustments in physical resources at the level of plant and
machinery or consumables. A tourism organisation may
have a dedicated purchasing department to co-ordinate the
buying of physical resources. Important considerations in
physical resources planning include:
Specification - This may involve a careful audit of the uses
to which physical resources are to be put. The result will be
a list of required specifications.
Fitness for purpose - This will examine the match between
the specifications offered and the specifications required
Cost - Prices between suppliers need to be compared,
taking into account running and maintenance costs.
Terms - Is it more appropriate to lease or buy capital
goods?
Identification of resources
Human resources
 Strategic implementation will have consequences
for human resources, and manpower planning will
need to address:
manpower numbers
skills
recruitment and selection, and,
training and development
grading and remuneration
Identification of resources
Information and technology resources
 Information and technology competence may be
obtained by
In-house development
Purchase from external providers for internal use
Contracting out of services
Alliances
Acquisition of organisations that possess the desired
technology
Resource fit
There are two potential problems of resource
fit.
 First, the technical issue of how new resources
will fit with existing ones? This is a particular
problem for areas such as computer resources,
where new software may just not technically
operate on old systems, or the computer systems
of two merging organisations may be
incompatible.
 The second problem of resource fit concerns fit
between resources and organisational skills.
Formulation of a
coordinating plan
A co-ordinating plan is a key to strategic
implementation. It comprises the following
elements
 project logistics, (planning)
 project objectives (operations)
Management by Objectives (MBO) can be an
important contributor to strategic implementation.
First MBO helps to clarify the strategy - what does the
strategy mean in terms of measurable performance
targets? Second, MBO, assists implementation since
this now becomes attributable to personnel who have
been assigned specific tasks.
Design of Organisational
Structure
 An organisational structure is the framework which
describes how an organisation's activities are
arranged. It shows how its personnel are grouped
together and the purposes of the groupings (e.g.
marketing, human resource management). It shows
lines of communications between groupings,
organisational hierarchy and control.
 Mintzberg (1979) defines an organisation's structure
as "...the ways in which its labour is divided into
distinct tasks and then its co-ordination achieved
amongst those tasks."
Structural Types
The main types of organisational structure
include:
 simple
 functional
 multidivisional
 matrix structure
 holding company
 experimental / organic
Structural Elements
 Mintzberg (1979) identified six basic elements
common to all organisational structures. These are:
 the operating core - the employees who produce the goods
or provide the services.
 the strategic apex - the management of the organisation.
 the middle line - as organisations grow, middle-managers
are needed.
 the techno-structure - analysts such as accountants and
statisticians who perform a monitoring role
 the support staff - who provide internal services such as
catering, cleaning and legal services.
 its ideology - which describes the overarching values,
beliefs and aims of the organisation.
Functional Structure
Multidivisional Structure
Matrix Structure
Issues in Organisational
Design
Key issues in organisational design include:
 nature of structural groupings
 tall vs. flat structures
 bureaucratic vs. flexible
 centralisation vs. decentralisation
 co-ordination of structural elements
Review of Key Terms
 Resource planning: Identification of resources, ensuring resource
fit, and formulation of a co-ordinating plan
 Co-ordinating plan: A plan covering project logistics (planning)
and project objectives (operations)
 Logistics: The organisation and management of the flow of goods,
information, human and other resources in order to achieve a
particular goal.
 Organisational structure: The framework which describes how an
organisation's activities are arranged.
 Simple structure: Absence of formal structure.
 Functional Structure: Groupings arranged according to functional
areas.
 Divisional structure: Groupings arranged according to an
organisation’s products or services or geographical areas.
 Matrix structure: Groups workers by both function and product.
 Holding company: An umbrella-type structure for the ownership
and co-ordination of a number of clearly separated business units.
 Organic structure: A flexible and fluid network of people and
communications.
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the suitability of using an experimental or
organic type of organisational structure for a tourism
organisation with which you are familiar.
2. Does structure follow strategy or strategy follow
structure? Discuss with reference to a named
tourism organisation.
3. Identify and explain Mintzberg's six structural
elements by reference to a tourism organisation you
are familiar with.
4. Prepare a project plan which demonstrates the
logistics of a named tourism strategy.
5. Identify the type of organisational structure which
exists for a named tourism organisation. Is this
structure appropriate for the future?
Strategy for Tourism
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Part 4
Unit 10
Strategy
Preparation,
Resource Planning
and Structures
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The End