Many owners and managers of a successful business ultimately face the question of stability and increasing the efficiency and quality of team work, increasing positive feedback from partners and customers, and, most importantly, reducing costs. All these issues are solved by project management. Creating a project from scratch and its successful turnkey implementation is possible only if entrepreneurs understand the importance of project management. In this article, we will look at what project management really is and how you can create a successful tourism or infrastructure project.

My experience in project management began in 1993. Then I headed the innovation department in one of the Ukrainian investment companies, which worked under the patronage of the current President of Ukraine. Therefore, the projects I managed were of international or national scale. We worked on the creation of fructose from sugar production waste, the development of trunk communication (an analogue of the modern cellular network), the improvement of marble extraction and processing in the Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia regions. However, the main direction of our team’s activity was the creation of a network of Free Economic Zones – InterPorts in Ukraine. In my opinion, if in 1994 the incumbent President had not lost the election to the next one, three out of four of these projects (except for trunk communication) would have had an excellent prospect of being implemented.

According to the website worksection.com, practice shows that for 85% of project managers it is normal to work with several projects at the same time. After all, in today’s highly competitive market, companies can often maintain profitability only in this way. The goal of each project is the production of one or another product or service. 44% of companies that use project management confirm that the quality of their product is higher than that of those that do without it. And some more useful information from Worksection: statistics say that projects with more than $1,000,000 in investment fail 50% more often than those with a budget of up to $350,000. It is clear that such an epic mistake for the company can end in complete financial collapse. Therefore, project management is important for those who work with expensive projects.

What is a project?

As a member of our team, Ph.D. Tetyana Tymoshenko, notes in her trainings on the development of tourist destinations, the Project is a set of actions aimed at achieving clearly and concretely formulated goals within certain time and budget frameworks. The project is also part of the planning.

A project is not an ongoing activity, because it is important that the results and set of actions are unique. Also, the Project is not a design and construction activity.

Types of projects:

• Institutional projects (projects of cooperation of territorial communities),
• Regranting projects (grants for the implementation of projects of non-commercial organizations),
• Business projects,
• Public (charity), social projects,
• Target projects

&

• Solid (infrastructural) projects (creation or renovation of fixed assets),
• Soft projects (investment in “social capital”)

Results of a high-quality development project:

1. Positive socio-economic effect
2. Clear, understandable and logical algorithm
3. Long-term impact and sustainability of results
4. Development is always about PEOPLE

Project management in the field of tourism

At the beginning of the 21st century, tourism ranks 1st by the volume of services, and 3rd by the volume of income among the leading sectors of the economy and has the highest growth rates (in the last decade, revenues from tourism have tripled). The share of tourism, as a branch of the economy, is about 12% of the total world GDP.

That is why project management in the field of tourism is extremely important and leading companies pay a lot of attention to it. Recently, the leader among the countries developing tourism projects is Saudi Arabia. At the end of 2023, the Minister of Tourism of this country released information according to which the Kingdom will invest 800 billion US dollars in the tourism sector. Of course, these will be solid institutional projects for the development of already existing and creation of new recreation areas on the Red Sea, in Diriyah, Qiddiya and in other regions.

This type of tourism project should be considered complex, combining many aspects for the further sustainable development of the community. Among the main requirements of such a project are:

• Creation of a centralized network of routes for cyclists, pedestrians, horse riders, etc. on the territory of the community;
• Creation and improvement of parking spaces on the territory of settlements and outside;
• Improvement of public transport stops / food and recreation points / sanitary zones;
• Creation of rental points;
• Creation of information materials about routes, navigation along routes, etc

As for other types of projects, companies can develop and implement them on their own, or they can turn to professionals. These can be projects from the creation or expansion of a hotel business to the implementation of online solutions with Artificial Intelligence. You can implement such projects online, in the sky, on the ground, in water and even in space. Our team has many years of experience in implementing both small and global turnkey projects of any complexity.

Our most successful tourism projects

Over the years of our work, we have completed 189 projects for hotels, restaurants, tourism and transport companies and created 22 tourist destinations. Thanks to our projects, services were provided to more than 3 million tourists. Read more about our achievements and reviews of our work HERE.

We consider the following to be the most successful projects in the field of tourism, hospitality and destination management:

• Joint Cypriot-Ukrainian project “Nova Era Tours” (1996-99)
• Creation and operation of a network of youth hostels in Ukraine (1999-2009)
• Scientific and educational center “Student Tourism Laboratory” (2004-2009)
• Online reservation service Toursnlodging (2008-20)
• Startup uConcierge (2013-14)
• Startup Feel Like a Millionaire (2016-18)
• National project Tourism Clusters 300+ (2018-22)
• Ukrainian tourism development roadmap (2019)
• Azov tourist destination management (2020-22)
• Tourism development in communities (2021-22)
• Student Tourism Lab in Uganda (2024)

If you need a high-quality and effective tourist product or you want to develop a new line of business, cooperation with our team will be the best choice!

(c) Oleksandr Fainin