Two decades of evolution in tourism competitiveness: a co-word analysis

Abstract

Purpose The objective of this study was to analyze the evolution of tourism competitiveness over the years, ascertaining the state of the art and the degree of consensus among scholars on its constituent elements to propose an integrative and updated concept. Design/methodology/approach A set of 130 definitions on tourism competitiveness formulated between 1999–2018 was analyzed and segmented into three periods, allowing its historical evolution to be ascertained. It is a qualitative and quantitative exploratory research that uses a combination of techniques, namely, content analysis, analysis of co-words and consensus analysis. Findings The results indicated a low use of elements such as the quality of life and the environment in the authors' definitions during 1999–2018, although these elements were present in the first concept of tourism competitiveness by Crouch and Ritchie (1999, 2003). Another finding of this study shows a reduction in the analysis of tourism competitiveness based on the supply and demand side. Nowadays, the research tends to turn on the basis of the population directly affected. It also reveals the enrichment of the theoretical corpus with new lines of research arising and new groups of scholars of the subject, consequently a new frontier in tourism competitiveness. Research limitations/implications The authors recommend deepening the analysis in each category of conceptual elements of tourism competitiveness to identify the origins of the low consensus. The authors also suggest conducting further research on the largest invisible schools of thought on this subject to understand their relations and perspectives, and thus to advance in the theoretical streams of the field. Finally, it is imperative to develop research on new models and monitors of tourism competitiveness that meet its renewed concept and integrate dimensions to consider the perspective of supply, demand, tourists and residents, as well as not excluding the economic bias but including the social side. Practical implications Owing to the fact that monitors of tourism competitiveness have practically no variables related to the social, most of the surveys are carried out from the supply or demand perspective, leaving the resident distant from the process. In this way, the results allow authors to indicate that new models of competitiveness measurement should be formulated based on the vision of the community impacted by tourism, i.e. a new version of tourism competitiveness not based on productivity but rather on the social aspect. Originality/value The findings of this study contribute to the field literature by offering an integrative concept of tourism competitiveness based on the elements with a higher level of consensus among researchers. Furthermore, the results accentuate a worrying fact regarding the operationalization of this concept, as the theoretical basis is not expressed in the monitors of competitiveness. Thus, nor it is possible in the management of the tourism industry.

Stakeholders’ perceptions of competitive tourism destination: empirical evidence from Serbia

“…The relationship between competitiveness, tourism sustainability (Iordanova and Stylidis, 2019;Wang et al, 2021) and smart tourism destinations from the perspective of demand, supply and residents has been extensively researched (Goffi et al, 2019;Koo et al, 2016;Cimbaljevi c et al, 2019;Streimikiene et al, 2021). The intelligent transformation of destinations which incorporates the information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, location based services, augmented realty and virtual reality, blockchain technology and the internet of things are found to have an increasing impact on destination competitiveness by achieving resource optimization, efficient management, sustainability and quality of life (UNWTO, 2021;Buhalis and Sinarta, 2019;Cimbaljevi c et al, 2019;Aguiar-Barbosa et al, 2021;Dorcic et al, 2019). The use of these technologies also allows consumers to better incorporate their preferences into travel planning (Costa, 2019;Buhalis and Sinarta, 2019).…”

Competitive Benchmarking of Tourism Resources and Products in Extremadura as Factors of Competitiveness by Identifying Strengths and Convergences of Spanish Regions in the Period 2010–2018

“…In short, monitoring competitiveness becomes an essential tool for improving the competitive situation of any destination. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that in addition to static analysis, studying the evolution of tourism competitiveness is vital for destinations, since as Aguiar-Barbosa et al [6] point out, this evolution represents an indicator of change in the tourism market which also allows us to evaluate the efficiency of the strategies developed to improve certain aspects. For this reason, it is considered that the results obtained by this research represent a valuable tool for destination managers, since from the starting point of static information, a dynamic analysis is performed which gives important results for each of the 17 micro-destinations of each of the autonomous regions into which the country is divided, which can become valuable input for them to evaluate which policies are the most effective for achieving their objectives.…”

“…In this sense, monitoring the competitiveness of a destination becomes a key task if it is to explore its potential and minimize its limitations by increasing its attractiveness [6]. For this reason, since the study of the phenomenon of competitiveness began with the first research carried out at a company level by Porter [7], a number of scientific studies have appeared which adapt this concept to the peculiar characteristics of tourism activity, which have focused their interest on trying to delimit said concept [8,9] and pinpoint the factors affecting the competitiveness of a destination [1,[10][11][12][13].…”

Competitiveness in the visitor economy: A systematic literature review

“…Considering the different levels of competitiveness and relativity of the concept, defining and measuring tourism competitiveness constitutes a separate research question (Aguiar-Barbosa et al, 2021) beyond the reach of this article. The most commonly cited definition, reflecting the traditional focus on national economies, is from the OECD as ‘the degree to which a country can, under free and fair market conditions, produce goods and services which meet the test of international markets, while simultaneously maintaining and expanding the real incomes of its people over the longer term’ (Roy, 2011: 52).…”

“…Most recently, Cronjé and Du Plessis (2020) reviewed the relevant literature from 1997 to 2018, identifying different perspectives on tourism destination competitiveness research, and Aguiar-Barbosa et al (2021) analysed the evolution of 130 definitions of tourism competitiveness over two decades (1998–2018) using both qualitative and quantitative analyses. However, these review papers do not address the intellectual and conceptual structure and adopt purely qualitative or quantitative review methods.…”