Strategic Planning and its Impact on Tourism Resource Management
Ali Fouad Ksheish
Under the supervision of Asst. Lect. Zainab Muslim Al-Moussawi
Strategic planning is one of the most important administrative approaches that helps all tourism organizations achieve success, sustainability, and overcome the risks faced by the management of tourism and travel organizations in their work environment. This is in light of the widespread increase in local competition and the possibility of exploiting opportunities that require organizations to become pioneers in their long-term performance. The importance of strategic planning for any organization, especially tourism organizations, lies in its role as a tool for investing superior resources, enabling them to confront the changes and developments that arise in their environment and impact their ability to achieve their goals. Furthermore, it constitutes the basic approach they follow in investing resources in their dealings with the distant future, and is used as a basis for making decisions related to the organization’s performance and proper management. The success or failure of organizations depends on the extent to which the investment of superior resources possesses administrative skills, including strategic planning. Tourism organizations that utilize strategic planning are more successful and effective than those that do not. The strategic planning process includes defining the tourism organization’s vision, i.e., the reality it aspires to and dreams of. The organization is reaching it in the future. Now the vision is related to how the tourism organization expects its future. The strategic planning process also includes formulating the organization’s mission, which is related to the organization’s present and then contributes to determining the strategic goals that the organization seeks to achieve in the future. The concept of strategic planning has shown remarkable results in the operations market, as it is almost impossible for the organization not to have profitability through the application of strategic planning methods and techniques in its work. Organizations that have a clear concept of strategic planning have the highest ability to achieve their goals. Organizations that do not apply strategic planning in their work have little chance of survival and continuity in the market, as these organizations take into account the influence of external factors that have a significant impact on the organization and the influence of internal factors through the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, which in turn works to achieve the specific goals and the strategy of implementation method, in addition to means of measuring and evaluating the implementation of goals.
