Tourism Business Strategy: Why Every Tourism Business Needs a Strategy Before a Marketing Plan

Why every tourism business needs a strategy before it needs a marketing plan.

There are a handful of questions I ask almost every new client, but there's one that usually tells me more about a business than anything else.

It isn't about their marketing budget.

It isn't about how many followers they have on social media.

It isn't even about their website.

Instead, I ask them a very simple question.

"Where do you want your business to be in ten years?"

It's amazing how often the conversation stops there. People don't struggle because they don't care about the future. Quite the opposite. Tourism operators are some of the most passionate, resilient and hardworking people you'll ever meet. They've poured their savings, their energy and often their lifestyle into building something they genuinely love.

What catches them out is that they're so busy running the business that they've rarely given themselves the time to think about where the business is actually heading.

Instead of answering the question, they usually start telling me what they'd like to do.

"We need a new website."

"We'd like more Australian visitors."

"We're thinking about another product."

"We should probably be doing more on social media."

They're all perfectly reasonable ideas.

The problem is they're talking about activities, not direction.

After nearly thirty years working in tourism, I've become convinced that's one of the biggest differences between businesses that continue to grow and those that seem to work harder every year without making the progress they hoped for.

The businesses that consistently move forward aren't always the biggest. They don't necessarily have the largest marketing budgets or the fanciest websites. More often than not, they simply know where they're going.

Once you've got that clarity, everything else becomes easier.

A few years ago I was running one of my business strategy workshops with a room

full of tourism operators. We'd already spent the morning talking about marketing, branding and business growth when I asked everyone to close their laptops for a moment.

"Close your eyes," I said.

"Imagine it's ten years from now. You're standing outside your business. What does it look like?"

At first there was silence.

Then people started talking.

Not about websites.

Not about brochures.

Not about Facebook.

Instead they talked about creating jobs for local people. They talked about spending more time with family, protecting the environment, leaving a legacy for their children and building businesses they were genuinely proud of.

It was one of those moments that reminded me why strategy matters so much.

When people stop thinking about next week's bookings and start thinking about the business they really want to build, the conversation changes completely.

Marketing suddenly becomes a much smaller part of a much bigger picture.

One of the biggest misconceptions I come across is that strategy is something only large organisations need.

I actually think the opposite is true.

If you're a small tourism business, every decision matters.

You probably don't have the luxury of unlimited budgets or large marketing teams. Every dollar you spend has to work hard. Every partnership you build matters. Every trade show, every campaign and every new product takes time, money and energy.

That's exactly why having a strategy is so important.

It's not about creating a document that sits on a shelf gathering dust.

It's about giving yourself a framework for making better decisions.

I often think back to a conversation I had with a tourism operator during COVID.

Like so many businesses, they were desperately trying to work out how they were going to survive while New Zealand's borders remained closed. International visitors had disappeared almost overnight and there was no certainty about when they would return.

As we talked through their options, one thing became painfully obvious.

Almost every dollar of their marketing budget over the previous few years had been invested in attracting international visitors. They had built relationships with overseas wholesalers, attended international trade shows and focused heavily on export markets. They had done a fantastic job of becoming known offshore.

What they hadn't done was build the same level of awareness in their own community.

Very few locals knew their story. They hadn't invested time in building relationships with neighbouring tourism operators, local accommodation providers or businesses that were speaking to visitors every single day.

When international visitors disappeared, they suddenly found themselves trying to introduce their business to the people who lived closest to it.

Their international strategy hadn't been wrong.

It just couldn't be their only strategy.

That conversation has stayed with me ever since because it reinforced something I now discuss regularly with clients.

A good strategy shouldn't just help your business grow when times are good.

It should help your business remain resilient when things change.

Even today, with international tourism back, I encourage operators not to underestimate the value of their local community and domestic market. Visitors ask locals for recommendations every day. They ask café owners where they should have dinner. They ask hotel receptionists what they shouldn't miss. They ask retail staff what they would do if they only had one day in town.

Those conversations influence visitor decisions far more than many businesses realise.

If you've invested time in building relationships within your own community, your business is much more likely to be part of those recommendations.

Word of mouth doesn't happen by accident.

Like everything else in business, it benefits from having a strategy behind it.

Another client taught me a completely different lesson.

They wanted to expand into tourism experiences. They already had a successful business and could see opportunities to diversify, so they'd started experimenting with different ideas.

Some showed promise.

Others quietly disappeared.

From the outside it looked like they were innovating.

In reality, every new idea was being judged on whether it sounded exciting rather than whether it was taking the business towards a clearly defined goal.

When we stepped back from the day-to-day operation, I realised we weren't ready to talk about products just yet.

Before we could decide what experiences to develop, we had to understand why they wanted to offer them in the first place.

Were they trying to increase revenue?

Extend visitors' length of stay?

Create year-round demand?

Reach a completely different audience?

Strengthen the brand?

Until we answered those questions, every opportunity looked like a good opportunity.

Once we became crystal clear on the purpose behind the expansion, everything else became much simpler.

We designed experiences that supported those goals instead of distracting from them.

Just as importantly, we became very clear about who those experiences were for.

One of the most valuable outcomes wasn't identifying our ideal customer.

It was identifying the people we weren't trying to attract.

That can feel uncomfortable because nobody likes the idea of turning away potential business.

But I've learnt that clarity is incredibly powerful.

The more clearly you understand who your business is for, the easier it becomes to create products, write marketing messages and build a reputation that genuinely connects with the right people.

People often ask me what strategy actually is.

I don't think it's complicated.

To me, strategy is simply making deliberate decisions before you start taking action.

It's understanding why your business exists beyond making money.

It's knowing what success looks like for you - not what success looks like for your competitors.

It's deciding which markets you'll invest in and which ones you won't.

It's understanding your ideal customer well enough that your marketing starts speaking directly to them instead of trying to appeal to everyone.

Most importantly, it's giving yourself permission to say no.

That might sound strange, but I honestly think it's one of the greatest gifts a strategy gives you.

New opportunities arrive all the time in tourism.

A trade show invitation.

A partnership.

A new distribution channel.

A request to develop another product.

An opportunity to enter a new market.

Without a strategy, every one of those opportunities feels equally important.

With a strategy, I only need to ask one question.

Will this help us achieve our goals?

If the answer is yes, then it's worth exploring.

If the answer is no, it's usually a very easy decision.

I come back to that question constantly, both in my own business and with my clients.

It saves an enormous amount of time, money and second-guessing.

If you've read this far and you're expecting me to tell you to write a hundred-page business plan, I'm going to disappoint you.

I don't believe most tourism businesses need one.

What I do believe is that every business owner deserves the time and space to step away from the day-to-day operation and think about the future.

Not next weekend.

Not next summer.

The next decade.

What are you trying to build?

What do you want your business to be known for?

Who do you most want to serve?

What sort of life are you creating for yourself and your family?

Those questions won't just shape your strategy.

They'll shape every decision that follows.

Because once you know where you're heading, the marketing plan almost writes itself.

Your website tells a clearer story.

Your social media has purpose.

Your product development becomes more focused.

Your partnerships become more intentional.

Your investment decisions become easier.

Everything starts pulling in the same direction.

And perhaps that's why, whenever someone comes to me asking for help with their marketing, I almost always begin somewhere completely different.

Before we talk about marketing, I want to know where they're trying to go.

Because in my experience, that's where every successful tourism business begins.

Before your next big decision, ask yourself one simple question:

Will this help me achieve my goals?

If the answer is yes, pursue it with confidence.

If the answer is no, don't be afraid to let it pass.

Because strategy isn't just about deciding what you'll do.

It's about having the confidence to decide what you won't.