(Curriculum Vitae Excerpt: Skills in Destination Management)

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My educational background and entire work life has centered around tourism and hospitality, with considerable emphasis on strategic management, marketing (branding), and tourism development issues. Notably, my consulting experience has been well balanced with a predilection toward the practical and pragmatic. I understand the “operational mindset”; speak the “operational language”; and know the necessity of being action-oriented and the need to push for a balanced scorecard of results. I appreciate the complexities and challenges, however, of making businesses profitable and destinations viable and sustainable.

I am a firm believer in making the business case for the sustainable development of tourism, and in revealing how, and exciting others in achieving the potential for becoming “great”. Improving the competitiveness and sustainability of destinations requires deep commitment and a high degree of collaboration among organizations. The process takes time and persistence as many people may need to be weaned from mentalities accepting of mediocrity, or merely being satisfied with …”good enough.”

As a marketer I see sustainability as a powerful brand asset that enhances integrity and trust, and can be used to build visitation rates and length of stay. Sustainability, therefore, is of consequence not only to the resource, or supply side, of tourism, but to the demand side as well. Totally engaged visitors and guests are a function of fully engaged and content hosts who are proud of their communities, and proud to serve. I am a firm believer in the power of hospitality and the delivery of “gold standard” services.

With improvements to sustainability (ecological, economic and human) come enhancements to the quality-of -life and opportunities to enhance people’s well-being. I encourage people to focus on the long-term and visualize the big picture – a difficult proposition with operators who tend to be pre-occupied with today.

With years of consulting and teaching experience, I am a seasoned evaluator, writer, communicator, and facilitator of change. I work well within a team environment, and as such have developed good listening skills. My perspectives on sustainable tourism are based on (1) evaluating the impacts of unsustainable development and a study of destination life cycles on which I have written extensively, and (2) examining and observing all sorts of tourism businesses and enterprises – what characteristics and attributes distinguish “the best”.

I am familiar with high-tech ways of delivering education and training as I helped create the University of Guelph’s new MBA program based on e-learning, using the internet. I continue to teach the on-line, MBA hospitality/tourism marketing course. I am computer literate – Microsoft office applications, power point, etc.