"Therefore measure in terms of five things, use these assessments to make comparisons, and thus find out what the conditions are. The five things are the way, the weather, the terrain, the leadership, and discipline.”

Sun Tzu – The Art of War

Our Approach

ECS Destination Development (ECSDD) is a division of Echelon Corporate Solutions. ECSDD provides high-calibre consulting services specialising in strategic planning, with particular expertise in the areas of tourism marketing and economic development.

Our highly talented team is intimately familiar with 'best practice' processes for stakeholder engagement and community consultation. ECSDD assists destinations and organisations to realise their full potential by identifying market conditions and ensuring there is a match with products and services on offer. If there are any gaps then product development and quality assurance will become part of the plan. An initial needs analysis will identify client expectations and unique selling points.

ECSDD firmly maintains that, despite how sound a strategic plan is, a top-down approach in strategy development and implementation will not realise full potential. The ultimate strategic plan is developed with a high level of stakeholder and, when appropriate, community engagement. When it comes to implementation or ‘roll out’, those responsible for implementation will adopt a greater sense of ownership and be better advocates of the plan because they participated in the process.

Our team enjoys working with a broad spectrum of clients including all tiers of government, local and regional businesses, tourism organisations, community groups and formal advisory groups.

Key members of our Destination Development team are profiled below.

Our Products and Services

• Ensure process and outcomes comply with planning and reporting requirements of the Local Government Act and the Local Government (General) Regulation
• Needs analysis
• Undertake desktop and/or primary research
• Analyse research
• Review and analysis of previous plans
• Establish identity/essence of destination, uncover or create destination appeal
• Identify structure and operational goals
• Identify objectives, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Identify methods for resourcing and delivery
• Professional accounting assistance with financial plan components
• Analyse existing or recommend the creation of a destination website
• Analyse existing or recommend the creation of a destination publication
• Identify a compelling tourism strategy
• Identify an effective economic development strategy
• Benchmarking and tracking and reporting through systems developed in conjunction with University of Western Sydney (UWS)
• Independent assessment of progress of plan on an annual basis
• Attempt to streamline local needs and goals with regional and state goals
• No-cost assistance with applications/submissions for relevant funding programs to drive destination development
• Design a media and public relations strategy
• Identify all stakeholders