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Guest Blog: Destination Leadership

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In this guest blog, Aileen Lamb, Tourism Manager, Scottish Enterprise, talks about the activities and impact of the Destination Leaders Programme and a recent learning journey to the city of Amsterdam. 

The Destination Leaders Programme – developed by Scottish Enterprise – is a first in Europe and by May 2015 thirty eight individuals will have graduated with an Executive Certificate in Leadership awarded by Edinburgh Napier University.

The second DLP cohort, pictured above, recently spent 48 hours with senior tourism operators in Amsterdam, who shared insights on how they’ve grown their business through collaboration. We learned that our Dutch colleagues are managing peaks in demand from visitors in Amsterdam city centre with smart visitor dispersal plans. The group was keen to hear how Marketing Amsterdam (the destination organisation) has helped simplify to manage a complex range of partners delivering tourism.

Attendees from Edinburgh were pleased that the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) model for destination collaboration was identified as best practice and something which Amsterdam was learning from.

Some tips which can be applied by our Destination Leaders to help grow tourism here in Scotland included:

  • Help your residents be your advocates – “Love your city”.
  • The most powerful collaborations are built on a clear business rationale (but a social element often helps open doors too – have a beer together!).
  • Use your icons – particularly in far away markets.
  • Manage partners expectations – not every partner should equal – it’s ok to say no.

Before the group set sail on a canal tour of the city our group was hosted by ijVenues. This is an impressive, innovative new collaboration which can host 1,900 conference delegates just 5 minutes from the centre of the city.

The partners, 5 star Movenpick hotels; Passenger Terminal Amsterdam and the state owned Bimhuis (one of the world’s Top 10 live music and jazz venues) have significantly increased revenues and sales by delivering an integrated product. The hotel now reports 89% occupancy, much of this from new business tourism guests, and Movenpick will embed this collaborative model across their brand worldwide.

There was a great feeling of optimism amongst our Destination Leaders who have taken their learning on destination leadership and will be putting it into practice in their final projects and within their destinations and tourism developments in Scotland.

DLP participant Annabel Meikle of The Whisky Belle said: “What struck me is the openness of the Dutch people, the openness that they have working together in collaboration with other businesses and not seeing that as a threat. I was struck by the leadership and the trust: that the ability to trust allowed the partners to develop their businesses and so the experience that they could offer visitors was much bigger and much more valuable and enjoyable as a result.”

Aileen Lamb, Tourism Manager, Scottish Enterprise, 23rd March 2015.

Find out more about the Destination Leaders Programme course content.

Guest Blog: Destination Leaders Learning Journey to Amsterdam

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In this guest blog, Kenneth Wardrop, Edinburgh Institute Programme Leader for the Destination Leaders Programme at Edinburgh Napier University shares his thoughts on the recent DLP learning journey to Amsterdam.

Robert Louis Stevenson famously said: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” In this context the benefits of taking our current group of Destination Leaders Programme participants on a learning journey to Amsterdam, created the opportunity to gain an external perspective and to reflect back on the operations and competitive positioning of our destinations – Edinburgh, Argyll and the Isles and Scotland.

The visit which was hosted by Amsterdam Marketing proved inspiring. Amsterdam Marketing’s Director of Marketing, Geerte Udo, provided powerful insights in to the success of the ‘Iamsterdam’ brand and global place marketing, the value of alignment of destination messaging, the power of a shared and clear vision for the destination, strong leadership provided by Amsterdam Marketing, and the benefits of collaboration.

On the learning journey the group were also hosted by the Van Gogh Museum , a commercially dynamic and creative cultural venue, and IJVenues : ‘Amsterdam’s first Music and Conference centre’, which provided a powerful case study on the ‘value-add’ that can be achieved through product innovation and cooperation. EI staff and the DLP participants were very appreciative of the time given by tourism industry colleagues in Amsterdam in sharing their experiences and insights with the group.

Following the visit DLP participants commented that the value of the learnings and insights gained over the past 5 months of the Programme all became apparent on this learning journey.

Diane McRae, Senior Event Manager at the Royal Yacht Britannia and DLP 2014/15 Participant said: “For me a key learning point from Amsterdam is that collaboration in the city comes across strongly from the top down and the ground level up, with the destination taking the experience from this collective approach and positively moving it forward, this is something our destination can learn from.”

Kenneth Wardrop, Associate, Edinburgh Institute Programme Leader for the DLP, 22 March 2015.

Programme information:

Based on an internationally acclaimed initiative originating from Melbourne, Australia, the Destination Leaders Programme (DLP) is a unique opportunity to build a new leadership model for Scottish tourism. Participants play an active role in helping position Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Argyll as world leading tourism destinations. Now in it’s second year, the second programme commenced in October 2014 and by May 2015, thirty-eight indiviuals will have graduated.

The DLP pilot programme was developed in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University and delivered by the Edinburgh Institute – the commercial arm of Edinburgh Napier University’s Business School – in partnership with Scottish Enterprise.