Identifying Destination Health: Developing the Concepts of Market Indifference and Destination Dependence / Market Irrelevance

Abstract

This article develops a diagnostic tool to identify destinations “at risk” as a result of markets’ interest or lack thereof in a place. “At risk” is used in a similar manner to the medical profession’s use of the term “patients at risk” to identify those patients at risk of deterioration in order to trigger early intervention. Two situations are identified: market indifference, where markets as a whole show little interest in a destination, and destination dependence/market irrelevance, where destinations are overly reliant on markets that in the larger scheme of outbound travel show little interest in the destination. The study analyzed 162 destinations using UNWTO data. Almost 80 are affected potentially by one of these conditions. Most at-risk destinations are either small island countries, micro states, or countries with an underdeveloped tourism sector. Interestingly, no differences were found in the contribution tourism makes to GDP between seemingly at risk and not at risk places.

Do destinations have multiple lifecycles?

“…This phenomenon also relates to a second future research stream that points to stability and volatility of destinations. This line of inquiry may add to McKercher and Mak's (2020) concept of destination health/risk to better explain why certain markets/market clusters are more (vs. less) valuable to others. As COVID-19 brought immense devastations to the travel industry, it is time to reframe our understanding of TALC to adhere to a more systems thinking approach in seeking means for destinations to co-adapt to the “new normal” under this unprecedented global pandemic.…”