Quality, Standards, and Certification

• Provide strategic leadership for all Tourism NI quality, standards, and certification functions.
• Ensure Tourism NI fully discharges its statutory and legislative responsibilities relating to accommodation certification and associated quality assurance activity.
• Maintain robust, efficient, and credible certification and quality systems that protect the visitor, support business improvement, and reinforce confidence in the Northern Ireland tourism offer.
• Use quality and standards as strategic tools to improve competitiveness, visitor satisfaction, and destination reputation.
• Ensure that quality frameworks remain relevant to changing visitor expectations, business models, accessibility requirements, and market trends.
• Develop a clear progression from minimum compliance to continuous quality improvement and business excellence.
• Benchmark Northern Ireland’s standards against national and international best practice and recommend improvements where required.
• Use insight from certification, grading, and quality assessment to identify recurring sectoral issues and inform wider business development programmes.

Knowledge Acquisition, Intelligence, and Best Practice

• Establish and maintain a structured approach to acquiring, sharing, and applying tourism sector knowledge across the function.
• Ensure that staff have sufficient knowledge of tourism businesses, visitor behavior, distribution channels, commercial models, and market dynamics to provide credible and informed guidance.
• Work closely with Tourism NI’s research, insights, marketing, strategy, and international market teams to translate intelligence into practical advice and business interventions.
• Build regular opportunities for staff to engage directly with tourism businesses, destinations, and visitor experiences to deepen their understanding of the operating environment.
• Monitor emerging trends, technologies, business models, policy developments, and international best practice relevant to tourism enterprise development.
• Develop external networks with industry experts, academic partners, economic development organizations, and leading tourism destinations.
• Ensure that intelligence and best practice are systematically shared across the team and embedded within programme design, client engagement, and investment decisions.
• Create a culture of professional curiosity, continuous learning, and evidence-led challenge, ensuring that Tourism NI’s advice remains current, credible, and commercially relevant.

Performance, Impact, and Evaluation

• Establish a clear performance framework for sectoral development, linked to business growth, revenue, productivity, employment, sustainability, quality, and visitor impact.
• Ensure every programme and intervention has clearly defined outcomes, eligibility criteria, measures of success, and arrangements for evaluation.
• Use data and client intelligence to assess the effectiveness of support and redirect resources where required.
• Demonstrate how Tourism NI’s interventions contribute to wider organizational and Programme for Government outcomes.
• Provide clear and timely reporting to the Executive Team, Board, Department, and other stakeholders on delivery, impact, risk, and value for money.

Corporate Leadership, People, and Governance

• Lead and develop high-performing, commercially aware, and client-focused teams with a strong culture of accountability, collaboration, and delivery.
• Ensure that strategic priorities are clearly communicated, understood, and translated into individual and team objectives.
• Take responsibility for workforce planning, capability development, succession planning, and the effective deployment of people resources.
• Build the tourism and commercial knowledge of the team, ensuring staff have the credibility and confidence to engage with businesses at all levels.
• Manage significant budgets, investment programmes, and contracts in accordance with public-sector governance, procurement, and value-for-money requirements.
• Maintain effective systems for risk management, assurance, performance management, and financial control.
• Contribute to a positive, integrated organizational culture and role-model Tourism NI’s leadership values and behaviours.

Additional Duties

• Ensure that all activities are managed in line with Tourism NI policies, procedures, values, and behaviours.
• Act as a central point of contact, including communicating with other Tourism NI teams and external stakeholders as appropriate.
• Contribute to the development of the sub-division Plan, the achievement of tourism targets, and promote the corporate values and behaviours within the team and across the organisation.
• Provide briefing material and draft responses and reports/emails as and when required by Tourism NI’s Senior Leadership & Management/Employees, the Board, the Department for the Economy, the NI Assembly, members of the tourism industry, and the general public within specified timelines and in an appropriate format.
• Ensure that sub-division processes adhere to the Tourism NI/Public Sector financial governance, policy, and procedure, the FAM Framework, and audit recommendations.
• Attend training as and when required and keep abreast of current developments in your area of work.
• Maintain, store, and dispose of sub-division records in accordance with Tourism NI’s information governance policy including the use of record management systems including Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365, and SharePoint.
• Assist in the delivery of project work within the sub-division and across Tourism NI including representation at working groups and meetings.
• Provide cover for the Director of Client Engagement when required to include decision-making and attending meetings in their absence.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade of the post as required by Tourism NI.