From 2022 to 2024, Sue and I worked extensively in Saudi Arabia, for New Zealand company OnlyfromNZ, in NEOM, on the Tourism Enablement Project. This work built on earlier work completed by Sue and I in the previous 6 years in the Sultanate of Oman. Key development work was to support and train 25 NEOM (Tabuk) adventure tourism operators with training, safety management systems, risk planning, and business improvement solutions and processes for their companies.

 

During our time in NEOM, Sue and I were integral to three projects:

1. Build an adventure regulatory system for tourism operators, with a focus on safety compliance and meeting legislative requirments.
2. Undertake a comprehensive TNA (training needs analysis) of adventure tourism providers in NEOM (Tabuk region).
3. Develop and deliver to adventure tourism operators a suite of simple, but effective tools to help operators assess both the safety of their operations, how well they were meeting customer expectations and a process for business improvement. Assisting operators to understand concepts of measuring customer satisfaction was central to this work.

 

Tourism is a fledgling, but rapidly growing industry in Saudi Arabia and the northern deserts of NEOM with their spectacular mountains, ancient settlements, petroglyphs  and ruins are an adventure playground.

 

Our work was to prepare adventure operators for licensing by ensuring minimum standards of safety and quality visitor experiences. Key to the project was to create bespoke tools that were simple to implement and provide operators feedback information on how well they were performing. These tools were intentionally designed to avoid complex software or bespoke apps. that would not work within simpler context of operator technology parameters.  Instead, we relied heavily on Microsoft Excel—a powerful data platform, readily available to all, which - with the right interface, can deliver clear accessible insights into operational performance in terms of quality, safety and satisfaction. More about our work in Saudi Arabia can be found at www.sapientia.nz

 

Adventure Safety provides these tools as download-able files free of charge, with the understanding that you assume all the risk associated with their use. They are locked, and if you want an unlocked version, again free of charge, contact me and I will send you the unlock code.

 

Once they are unlocked they are open, and are easily customizable if you have a few Excel skills and knowledge. If you or your business would like guidance, support, or tailored versions of any of the tools offered, please get in touch to discuss your requirements.