Evaluating an EU-project on improving sustainable competences in micro, small and medium seized Danish tourism enterprises

From the mid 1980s till present, the tourism sector in Denmark - as well as in other parts of the world (Vernon et al. 2005) - has seen an increasing number of short and long-term development projects in the form of public-private partnerships. The main body of the tourism development projects in Northern Jutland especially and in Denmark generally has never been evaluated formally by external evaluators – nor, so it seems, have they been evaluated internally by the organisations responsible for implementing the projects. Based on this astonishing lack of evaluation, it is in general very difficult to conclude with any kind of certainty whether or not the projects have actually had the effects that was promised and wished for. So far, there exists relatively little hard and/or soft ‘evidence’ of the positive or negative consequences of using public money for tourism development projects in Denmark. This, to many students of public policy, constitutes a serious problem. The aim of this contribution is to pass on thoughts and lessons from a formative impact evaluation of a specific tourism development project in the region of Northern Jutland, Denmark. One exception to the apparent rule.