The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Reports of the World Economic Forum elaborate the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) as an overall measure of destination competitiveness for 130 economies worldwide. From a tourism management point of view, a measure such as the TTCI is expected to be instrumental in explaining and predicting the tourism performance of receiving countries. This study explores several ways to transform the TTCI into a formative structural model. Partial least squares path modelling, PLS regression, mixture modelling and non-linear covariance-based structural equation modelling are applied to examine the TTCI's predictive power. The analysis probes possible measures for improvement. The destination countries may be subject to unobserved heterogeneity with regard to how the various constituents of competitiveness act on tourism performance. Interaction phenomena seem to prohibit a simple cause-effect pattern and non-linear relationships show encouraging results.
Globally, there are numerous undergraduate programs available in tourism that differ in content aims and scope. It is hard to judge which programs are preferable and on what criteria to base choice. Thus, this article provides a content analysis of 64 bachelor programs taught in English. The actual programs are compared to indicators identified in literature review. Furthermore, an adaptive conjoint analysis identifies the importance and utilities of different subject areas and themes that can compose a tourism program. The population is specified in a broad manner, including academics as well as industry professionals from both the private and public sectors. Results show that there are discrepancies between existing programs and what academics and industry professionals perceive as being important. The research offers recommendations on which topics and issues should be included in a tourism curriculum and provokes discussion on adaptation of existing curricula for the future.
In recent years, export segmentation effectiveness has attracted increasing attention in academic literature. The current study acknowledges this construct's ability to capture the proximal outcomes of export segmentation efforts and contributes to the literature by investigating its key drivers and link to export performance. The results identify export segmentation commitment, export segmentation strategy, and number of segmentation bases used as the key drivers of export segmentation effectiveness. A segments-within-countries strategy proves the most promising choice because it affects all export segmentation dimensions, which, with the exception of cost reduction, are significantly linked to customer satisfaction, strategic export performance, and, ultimately, financial export performance. The findings also provide support for the sequential segmentation AE targeting AE positioning process and highlight the importance of managerial commitment to export segmentation when facing heterogeneous markets.
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