The South African Tourism Planning Toolkit - Department of Tourism

9. Should priorities be changed to put more focus on achieving the goals?10. Should the goals be changed?11. What can be learned from our monitoring and evaluation in order to improve futureplanning activities and also to improve future monitoring and evaluation efforts?8.6 Designing Performance IndicatorsThe diagram below provides a format for designing performance indicators that reflect therequirement for:Reliability: how accurate do you want the information to be for the purpose to which itwill be put?Timeliness: how soon do you want the information to be available following actualevents?Participation: how will you involve those who will provide as well as those who will usethe information?Cost: what is affordable, including the internal staff and other resources you will need tosupport this work?Comparability: is part of your requirement to make comparisons with other local areas,or at the regional or national levels?Frequency: is the information required continuously – every month, every year?Utility: are the indicators going to be used to inform the decision-making process? Willthey be suitable for use by a wide range of audiences? Will they measure change? Canthey be sustained over a period of time? If the answer to any of the above questions is“no”, think carefully as to the suitability of the indicators you are proposing.8.7 Performance IndicatorsBelow we present some examples for monitoring by way of performance indicators. The factorslisted below under each section may not be applicable to your situation, and the model shouldbe adapted where necessary.114