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 wide ly recognised. However, no concise set of criteria, against which the perfo rmance of partnerships can be assessed, has been established. As a result, little research has been done in the area of evaluating the effectiveness a nd efficiency of tourism partnerships. This article aims to identify critic al success factors for partnerships between the public and the private sect ors at tourism destinations and to assess the performance of such arrangeme nts. 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 f or the evaluation of tourism partnerships against the critical success fact ors. The empirical study provides a useful source for extending the existin g list of factors influencing the performance of tourism partnerships by ne w determinants. It also gives a framework for self-assessment of partnershi p, which seems to be of utmost importance in securing a long-term viability of these agreements. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.