How to track your performance - Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are targets that you can set that help you measure progress against your strategic goals and objectives.

While you can have many different types of measures, KPIs are targets that are “key” to the success of your business.

Any type of Tourism & Hospitality business can set and track KPIs. The nature of these KPIs will depend on the segment you operate in but there will also be some KPIs that are common across all segments.

For instance financial KPIs around income or sales activity or costs can be similar across different business types but other KPIs for an accommodation provider will be different to a business that provides activities.

KPIs are generally linked to the long-term success of your business. Larger organisations often develop strategic plans that allow them to set a longer-term direction for their business, usually over a period of 3-5 years. Each of the strategic goals in this plan will usually have a subset of objectives and the KPIs are generally set to match these.

So if you have longer term objectives, then you should use these as your starting point to develop suitable KPIs.

Shorter-term KPIs can also be set where you want to track the performance of something like an event or a new tour or programme or an accommodation package.

There are no “right or wrong” KPIs, provided that they are first of all key to the success of your business and second that they are measurable.

If you have a strategic plan, then take your strategic goals and objectives and consider against each of these, what you can measure. The following table provides examples of some KPIs that you could consider either using or adapting in your business.