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The CVB Mission Statement: Your #1 Strategic Priority

There’s an old Japanese proverb that says:

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”

With that thought in mind, whenever I assist destination marketing clients with their strategic planning needs, I begin with the organization’s mission statement. Why? Because everything else must flow from it.

Here’s an overview for your next board retreat or planning session.

Laying the Foundation: Developing your CVB Mission Statement

Okay, everyone agrees that you are part of a purpose- driven organization that produces positive results.

Instead of yesterday’s traditional reactive tourism promotion agency, yours is pro-active. What’s more your agency is also customer focused, brand oriented and market driven. (By the way, we’re now describing what could be referred to as your CVB’s “Destination Marketing Process”).

If this sounds like your organization’s mantra, then your initial step in the Strategic Planning Process must be to review and craft an appropriate DMO Mission Statement by the governing body.

This Mission should be the mirror for the organization. It’s your “who, what and why”. It becomes the relevant purpose and core responsibility of the agency.

In fact, it is the clear reason for the existence of your DMO—why the bureau is in business--and all business planning and developments that follow must subscribe to it as the foundation of purpose. Therefore, it is critical that there be clarity and consensus around the Mission.

Rather than attempting to be all things to all people, bureau mission statements should clarify the agency's role in the development of new or incremental economic impacts for the community.

In other words, are you there to promote the destination and take customer orders—or is your agency responsible for producing higher volumes of quantifiable business?

Be careful now; If you are going to annunciate that mission, then you must be prepared to deliver the goods, to state results in hard numbers, and to forecast them for future delivery as part of a traditional marketing and business plan.

Here are other component thoughts for your mission statement:

• Are you the community's official marketing organization?
• Do you fulfill the needs of a public/private partnership?
• Do you produce results for residents as well as visitors/customers?

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Next Steps
Next, your Mission Statement should be followed by several broad-based objectives that support it and constitute the parameters for all of the ongoing work of the agency.

Your objectives should include: building customer awareness, interest and desire to visit; customer solicitation and the production of business; increasing visitor length of stay; producing research to guide program development, etc.

All of your future plans-including the strategic plan, the marketing plan, and department and individual performance objectives-- must flow from your new mission statement and these broad- based agency objectives.

Then each objective will be carried out by a series of strategies, which are followed by specific work programs or tactics that can be modified over time, based on changing market conditions and other evolving needs.

Your New Business Framework for Success
In summary, your newly defined Mission Statement should be viewed as the Business Framework that charts the course for your CVB.

It should be shared with community stakeholders and prominently incorporated in your Annual Marketing Plan, special reports--perhaps even on business oriented press releases and business cards--and revisited as part of your Bureau's Strategic Planning Process.

Your Own Personal Mission: What is it?
Finally, on a personal note, you might want to set aside business issues for a moment, and think about what your very own personal mission statement might look like.

In other words, how do you capsulate your own purpose-driven life in a mission statement that clarifies the way you live daily and who you are to others? What would you say? What would be the results of your life's efforts and for whom?

I find that lots of successful people have applied this Mission Planning Process to their day-to-day lives with great results. I suggest you take a moment and try writing it down-- And good luck for the future!

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