The Tampere Region Tourism Strategy has been prepared in horizontal cooperation by engaging personnel, the boards of directors of the company and its parent company Business Tampere Oy, partner companies and stakeholders. The starting point was to expand the operational guidelines prepared in Visit Tampere’s first year of operation in 2017 into a shared operational and development strategy for the region. In total, more than 260 people participated in the process.
The work started in February 2019 at a seminar of the Board of Directors of Visit Tampere by defining strategy work guidelines and the company’s long-term objectives. The Board considered the obstacles and enablers for smooth development, as well as strengths and weaknesses. The background material included market and competitor analyses of the second-largest cities of Nordic countries and the most important Finnish tourism cities. The discussion was prepared for with a ValueScout survey, which was sent to more than 360 tourism operators. There were 97 responses. The survey examined the emotional impressions and target state of respondents concerning Visit Tampere with a measurement method that reveals hidden growth potential in the market and helps understand the real motives of customers or consumers.
At the staff day in April, Visit Tampere’s own approach was analysed and compared with the ideal actor based on the research results, while considering the company’s priorities in relation to future trends and forces for change in the field. In June, Visit Tampere’s customer promise, primary tasks and prerequisites for success were reviewed under the guidance of Nina Vesterinen, Senior Advisor at FCG Suunnittelu ja Tekniikka Oy, who was selected to facilitate the strategy process.
At the joint meeting between the boards of directors of Visit Tampere and its parent company Business Tampere in June, the Learning Café working groups focused on target profiles for tourism and events in Tampere, on the forces for change and silent signals affecting Visit Tampere’s approach and tasks and on how to develop the tourism ecosystem in the region and take account of new players in particular.
In August, the Tourism and Convention Committee of the Tampere Chamber of Commerce and Industry took a stand on the division of labour and roles of Visit Tampere and other actors in order to achieve strategic objectives. In September, the round table discussions with the representatives of partner companies worked on and prioritised draft proposals to support the implementation of the strategic objectives, and considered the benefits of the reforming partnership model and the role of partner companies in the network.
In late September, Visit Tampere staff discussed target group outlines and actions to achieve the strategic objectives. The Board of Directors, the Management Team and representatives of the City of Tampere focused their attention on Visit Tampere’s role in comprehensive tourism management and on indicators of tourism development and performance indicators.
The strategy draft was open for comments on the Internet for two weeks. There was not a particularly high number of online responses. There was a general desire for practical measures to implement the strategy. The grades
were as follows: the region tourism vision 3.6/5, Visit Tampere mission 3.6/5, the strategic objectives 3.7/5, the roles of the action sets 3.6/5 and the school grade (4 to 10 scale) for the whole package 6.9.
In November, the Board of Directors of Visit Tampere and the City of Tampere’s Committee for Competence and Economic Development approved the tourism strategy at their meetings. The Strategy was published on 19 November 2019 at the Visit Festival.
The achievement of the strategic objectives will be reviewed and updated during the annual Visit Festival. The dialogue with Visit Tampere, partner companies and stakeholders will continue.