Performance of tourism partnerships: a focus on York

Partnerships between the public and the private sectors have recently come to prominence as a strategic tool for tourism development. The reasons for entering into such agreements and the nature of partnerships have been widely recognised. However, no concise set of criteria, against which the performance of partnerships can be assessed, has been established. As a result, little research has been done in the area of evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of tourism partnerships. This article aims to identify critical success factors for partnerships between the public and the private sectors at tourism destinations and to assess the performance of such arrangements. An extensive literature review has been undertaken in order to specify a set of tourism partnership success factors. A case study approach, with a tourism partnership in York constituting its subject, has been utilised for the evaluation of tourism partnerships against the critical success factors. The empirical study provides a useful source for extending the existing list of factors influencing the performance of tourism partnerships by new determinants. It also gives a framework for self-assessment of partnership, which seems to be of utmost importance in securing a long-term viability of these agreements. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.