Steve Nicol

Associate, Canada 

Experience

Steve has been providing tourism consulting services since 1986, prior to which he was engaged in hotel and food service management. He has led 80+ tourism development plans for individual communities and regional consortia in Canada, employing leading-edge practices in product, destination, industry, labour market and visitor services development. He has worked for all levels of government, indigenous organisations, DMOs and private-sector businesses. He has undertaken dozens of business plans, feasibility studies and valuation studies to help inform investment and divestment decisions for destination attractions, hotels and resorts and nature-based tourism operators. Steve has led or participated in more than 50 consulting assignments involving the socio-economic impacts on, or resulting from, tourism activity.

Core skills and qualifications

Steve has a Master of Business Administration from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and has been a certified management consultant with the Canadian Institute of Management Consultants since 1989.

Specialisms

Steve specialises in destination development planning in regions where nature-based experiences rely on effective management of public land and marine resources. His economics background includes the quantification of impacts on tourism arising from the development of major industrial projects such as mines and hydro-electric facilities, landscape-level land and resource management practices, including national parks, and infrastructure investments. He has particular interests in value of tourism research for rural economies, tourism as an economic development target and destination performance measurement.