Why do destinations need to be competitive

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes. Other access options You may be able to access teaching notes by logging in via your Emerald profile. Abstract Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to review the question: What have we learned about how tourist destinations may become more competitive and the tools to achieve this aim? Findings — The paper presents examples of key tools for improving destinations' competitiveness, how they were applied in industry contexts and recommendations for future use.

Practical implications — The paper summarizes the strategies and actions undertaken by organizations and destinations to improve competitiveness and comments on the practical implications.

Join us on our journey Platform update page Visit emeraldpublishing. Some deal with the general discussion about competitiveness, whereas others relate to specifics in the tourism industry. The origin of the analysis of competitiveness begins with Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations in He argued that the division of labor and the specialization are the foundation to achieve absolute advantage. He remarked on the importance of the lower costs as a competitiveness determinant.

David Ricardo developed the theory of the Skip to main content Skip to table of contents. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available. The general environment includes economic, political, social, cultural, and ecological status, while the task environment incorporates customers, suppliers, competitors, and regulatory groups [ 33 ]. Porter [ 19 ] concentrated on industrial structure task environment to hinder the business environment estimation from being far-sighted and wide-ranging, and five forces of competitive pressure are roughly asserted, including competition from substitutes, entrants, and established rivals, and the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers.

Although the significance of these factors may vary in different tourism sectors, the customer-oriented service quality, and the cooperation willingness of tourism enterprises in some specific contexts and their cooperative ability of providing value-added services etc. Considering the tourism practitioners, the indicators that require more consideration incorporate the ability and specialization of operating new technologies, availability of products and information, efficiency of services and communication, and related industry support etc.

In particular cases, the substantial factors could include economic strength, the general business environment and strategies, customer demands and market potentials e. Additionally, the empirical studies of factors affecting the price competitiveness of tourism firms also indicated the significance of technology levels, exchange rates, government policies, industry competition, and the penetration of multinational enterprises [ 1 ].

Destination competitiveness mainly relies on the comparative and competitive advantages of a destination [ 35 ]. Owing to the theoretic and practical deficiencies of developing the comprehensive tourism destination competitiveness models, academics struggled to identify the significance and relations of diverse destination competitive determinants [ 43 ]. Arguably, the measurement models for destination competitiveness that have been constructed so far are not very comprehensive and suitable to all tourism destinations, especially in those small and emerging economies with inadequate resources [ 17 ].

Tourism destination competitiveness is determined by the incorporation of destination attractions and the business environment that affects the overall tourism performance [ 31 ]. Competitive advantages depend largely on the capacity of tourism organizations to solidify their investments in the business, to earn the investment return, and to ensure jobs for the future.

Unfortunately, it has been recognized that no universal set of measurement scales exists in developing tourism-specific items based on the destination business environment and competitive advantages. Therefore, methodological approaches that capture the main measurement elements of generic business research combined with tourism literature are necessary.

In view of the above-mentioned statements, the examined factors influencing the destination business environment and competitive advantages in the original and most recent studies by scholars from different countries are shown in Table 1 , which is summarized into four themes to thoroughly display a strategic and holistic competitiveness measurement for tourism destinations.

Table 1. Factors influencing destination competitiveness. This entry is adapted from Scholarly Community. Submitted successfully! Thank you for your contribution! Check Note. Read Edit History Comment Lists. Table of Contents. Topic review. Subjects: Management. View times: Submitted by: Xiaoting Chi.

Tourism Competitiveness and Its Applications Tourism competitiveness generally represents the competence of a tourist destination to heighten its attractiveness for locals and travelers, through delivering high-quality, innovative, value-added products that tourists are concerned about and customer-oriented tourism services that are helpful to obtain domestic and global market shares and maintain its market position while competing with its competitors [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] , which also contributes to the efficient and sustainable utilization of tourism supporting resources [ 6 ].

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