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International Conference on Civil Engineering, Architecture, Urban Management and Environment in the
Third Millennium, Rasht, Iran-September 4, 2016.
1
From attractiveness to competitiveness:
A study on importance of Contributory factors in Determining
Tourism Destination Competitiveness
Zahra Nadalipour
Assistant Professor, University of Science and Culture, Tehran, Iran z.nadalipour@usc.ac.ir
Ali Asghar Taghipour
.
Abstract
Competitiveness is a famous word frequently mentioned in the management and economics
literature. In recent decades, this concept has been entered into tourism literature and has received
growing recognition. Over the past years, many studies on topics such as Destination Competitiveness
or more generally Travel and Tourism Competitiveness, have been done by researchers in various
parts of the world. These studies deal with issues such as identifying key attributes of destination
competitiveness, determining importance of competitiveness factors, investigating positions of the
particular destinations and developing models for destination competitiveness. Most of these studies
aim to help destination managers to identify weaknesses and strengths of the destinations. Therefore,
determining importance of the competitiveness factors is critical issue in tourism competitiveness
studies; but results of the said studies relatively differ in identifying importance of the
competitiveness factors. Hence, the central questions underlying this paper were put: “Which
variables must be considered when analysing importance of competitiveness determinations? And,
which one of these determinations is more critical to create and enhance destination
competitiveness?” After reviewing literature to identify different approaches to the study of
destination competitiveness, and discussion about topics such as different political ideologies,
governance and managerial structures, different stages of development and tourism life cycle in the
destinations, and difference between destination competitiveness and destination attractiveness, it was
concluded that differences in results of these studies may be due to different situations in which such
studies have been done. These situations refer to the different political structures, distinct ideologies
of politicians, different development stages and tourism lifecycles or different views of experts who
are surveyed in the case studies. Furthermore, differences between destination competitiveness and its
attractiveness must be considered when analysing destination competitiveness.
Key words: destination competitiveness (DC), destination attractiveness, competitiveness attributes,
political ideologies.
International Conference on Civil Engineering, Architecture, Urban Management and Environment in the
Third Millennium, Rasht, Iran-September 4, 2016.
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Introduction
A review of the literature indicates that there are many studies about destination competitiveness
(DC). Some of these studies have identified key factors and indicators determining competitiveness of
the destinations, and have developed models for DC. The most famous and detailed model on DC is
that of Crouch and Ritchie (1999, 2000, 2003), who developed a comprehensive model of destination
competitiveness and sustainability. They started studying on DC in 1992, in order to develop a
conceptual model (Crouch 2007:pp.2). Crouch and Ritchie's model has been widely applied in the
tourism literature. The model includes five main factors and 36 attributes. These factors can be listed
as: core resources and attractors; destination management; qualifying and amplifying determinants;
destination policy, planning and development; and supporting factors and resources. Their model
recognizes resources endowment and capacity to deploy resources as the basis of the DC. The impact
of the forces in the global macro environment and the circumstances of the micro environment also
have been considered in crouch and Ritchie’s model.
Other researchers also have developed models of DC (i.e. Dwyer and Kim 2003; Dwyer, Mellor,
Livaic, Edwards and Kim 2004; Tőzsér 2010). Dwyer and Kim for example, developed an integrated
model of DC including many of the variables and attributes recognized by Crouch and Ritchie (Table
1 summarizes some of the main competitiveness factors determined by several researchers). A
number of studies have been done by focusing on the specific aspects of DC (Stevens 1992, Baker,
Hayzelden & Sussmann 1996; Taylor 1995; Chacko 1998; Jamal & Getz 1996; Soteriou & Roberts
1998; Tourism Council Australia 1998; Dwyer, Forsyth & Rao 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2001, 2002;
Hassan 2000; Mihalic 2000; Go & Govers 2000; Buhalis 2000; Huybers & Bennett 2003, Dragoş
Cȋrstea 2014), and a number of researchers have studied competitive positions or potentials of the
particular destinations (Ahmed & Krohn 1990; Mazanec 1995; Chon & Mayer 1995; Pearce 1997;
Kozak & Rimmington 1999; Faulkner, Oppermann and Fredline 1999; Botha, Crompton & Kim
1999; Sirše & Mihalič, 1999; Kim, Crompton & Botha 2000, d'Hauteserre 2000; Kim, Choi, Moore,
Dwyer, Faulkner, Mellor & Livaic 2001; Papatheodorou 2002; Carmichael 2002; Dwyer, Livaic,
Mellor, 2003; Enright & Newton 2004; Hudson, Ritchie & Timur 2004; Enright & Newton 2005;
Vengesayi 2005, Omerzel Gomezelj 2006; Omerzel Gomezelj & Mihalič, 2008; Tanja, Vladimir,
Nemanja & Tamara 2011; Ayikoru 2015).
In several studies, DC was measured by various tools and methods (Cracolic i& Nijkamp 2008;
Bǎlan, Balaure & Veghes 2009; Barbosa, de Oliveira & Rezende 2010; Zhang et al. 2011) and in
some studies, ranking systems were developed for tourist destinations (see Croes & Kubickova,
2013).
Table 1. Some of the main competitiveness factors determined by several researchers
Competitiveness factors
De Keyser & Vanhove (1994)
Tourism policy
Macro-economic
Supply
Transport and Demand factors
Ritchie & Crouch (1999, 2000)
Core Resources and Attractors: physiography/climate; culture/history; market ties; mix of
activities; special events; entertainments; superstructures
Supporting Factors and resources: infrastructure; accessibility; facilitating resources;
hospitality; enterprise
Qualifying and amplifying determinants: location; interdependencies; safety/security;
awareness/image/brand; cost/value
Destination Policy, Planning and Development: system definition; philosophy; vision; audit;
positioning; competitive /collaborative analysis; monitoring and evaluation
Destination Management: marketing; finance and venture capital organization; human
resources development; information/research; quality of service; visitor management;
resource stewardship
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Kozak and Remmington (1999)
Primary factors (climate, ecology, culture, architectural Heritage)
Specific factors of the tourist sector ( hotels, transport means and entertainment)
Hassan (2000)
environmental sustainability
Comparative advantage
Industry structure
Demand factors
Heath(2002)
Focusing on the experience enhancers
Ensuring appropriate facilitators
Capitalizing on the value-adders
Providing the enablers
Addressing the fundamental non-negotiable (e.g. personal safety and health issues)
Providing and managing the key attractors
Continuous and transparent communication channels
Information management, research and forecasting
Managing competitive indicators and benchmarks
Balancing direct and indirect stakeholder involvement and beneficiation
Key success drivers (a shared tourism vision and leadership, guiding values and principles,
placing strategic priority on the "people" factor)
Enabling all tourism actors to play their roles optimally
Synergizing and balancing development and marketing
Sustainable development policy and framework
Strategic marketing framework and strategy
Dwyer & Kim (2003)
Resources (Endowed Resources, Created Resources, Supporting Resources)
Destination management
Situational Conditions
Demand
Vengesayi (2003)
Intrinsic destination resources & Mix of Activities
Experience Environment: Physical and Social
Supporting Services
Communication/Promotion
Enright and Newton (2004)
Tourism-specific factors
Physiography
Culture and history
Activities
Special events
Cuisine
Safety
Gooroochurn and Sugiyarto (2004)
Prices
Economic openness
Technological developments
Structure
Human development in tourism Social development
The environment
Human resources
World Economic Forum (2007,
2009, 2013)
Policy rules and regulations
Environmental sustainability
legislation
Safety and security
Health and Hygiene
Prioritization of Travel and Tourism
Air transport infrastructure
Ground transport infrastructure
Tourism infrastructure
ICT infrastructure
Prices competitiveness in the Travel and Tourism Industry
Communications infrastructure
Human resources
Affinity for Travel and Tourism
Natural resources
cultural resources
Climate Change
Tőzsér (2010)
Determining factors before and
during travel
Factors determining selection of
Destination
Key factors
Support factors
Management factors
Impacts of tourism on living
Conditions
Factors of macro environment
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Recently, numerous researches have been done to determine importance of the factors and
attributes affecting DC (Enright & Newton 2004; Crouch 2007; Zhou 2014). In some cases, studies on
importance of the competitiveness attributes have found different results; for example, Crouch (2007)
in determining relative importance of tourism competitiveness attributes found that physiography and
climate is the most important attribute, while Enright and Newton (2004) in a study on urban tourism
in the Asia-Pacific found that the most important attractor is safety - which was ranked fifth in
Crouch’s study. Moreover, despite possessing relatively high importance in Crouch’s study, attribute
of climate ranked twelfth in Enright and Newton’s study. As Enright and Newton argued, it is perhaps
because of considering climate in urban destinations less important than in the resorts or rural
destinations. Additionally, among business-related factors in Enright and Newton's study, political
stability was found to be the most important competitiveness factors. It can be argued that political
stability to somewhat refers to the political or managerial system of a destination and thus it
corresponds to the factors such as destination policy, planning and development in Crouch and
Ritchie’s model. As Crouch (2007) found, destination policy, planning and development ranked
fourth among five DC factors. In the other words, according to the results of Crouch’s study, the
relative importance of core resources and attractors is relatively higher than managerial and political
factors in a destination.
Other study belongs to Zhou (2014) who evaluated West Virginia’s resource-based tourism
competitiveness in relation to its neighbouring competitors. In this study, core resources and
attractors was assigned lower weight than quality and amplifying factor. In other words, despite
experts in crouch’s study (2007), experts in West Virginia evaluated qualifying and amplifying
determinants as the most important factor contributing to the DC. As Zhou argued, his finding
actually matches to Ritchie and Crouch’s study (2003), in which they stated that qualifying and
amplifying determinants can affect other competitiveness factors in a destination.
One important question is now: why different studies find different results in determining relative
importance of the DC attributes? Or which of “core resources and attractors” and “destination
policy, planning and management” is really more important in determining tourism DC? Before
answering to these questions, it will be useful to deal with issues about management and
governmental structures in the tourism destinations.
Destinations’ Management and Governance Structures
As Crouch and Ritchie (2003) in developing their model of Destination Competitiveness and
sustainability argued, destination management refers to those activities implementing the policy and
planning framework, which is established under destination policy, planning and development, while
enhancing the attractiveness of core resources and attractors, increasing the quality of the supporting
factors and resources, and adapting well in the face of threats and opportunities which qualifying and
amplifying determinants impose. This factor includes attributes such as organization marketing,
information and research, quality of service/experience, visitor management and so on. While core
resources and attractors are the primary elements of destination appeal, they cannot be appropriately
and fully applied to attract tourists without managerial factors that organize and prepare them in a
given destination. As Cracoolici and Nijkamp (2008) suggested, a tourist destination must manage its
resources more efficiently and effectively comparing with its main competitors. They believe that a
destination must be able to produce a tourist well-being through its resources, and such tourist well-
being must be higher than that offered by destination's competitors. Additionally, there are some
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destinations without considerable natural or historical attractions that could attract tourists by
adopting strategies such as generating artificial attractions or providing entertainment opportunities -
like what can be seen in Las Vegas as a major resort city. In other hand, managerial factors play a
critical role in developing tourism in any destination. Tourism managerial structure is directly or
indirectly affected by political structures in the destinations. Politics can substantially enhance or
confined the ability of a destination to compete. For this reason, managers of the Destination
Management Organizations must effectively interact with government officials because as Crouch and
Ritchie said, “these officials have over policies and programs that can alter the ability of the
destination to compete” (2003, p. 86).
As Burns and Novelli (2007) suggested, tourism development itself can be political because of
decisions that are taken by governments about economic, sociocultural and ecological issues related to
the tourism in a destination. Governments provide tourism development prerequisites and required
facilities. Providing infrastructure by the British Empire, developing railways and introducing dining
cars and railways restaurants by the United States, and establishing department of Tourist and Health
Resorts in 1901 by Australia States in the past decades (see Elliott 1997,pp. 24-25), are examples of
governments’ role in developing and boosting tourism industry in the world. Other example of the
government’s role can be seen in South Africa, where political ideologies of government considerably
Influence tourism sector. Before 1976, South Africa's government policy on tourism development is
characterized by Apartheid system and its separate development along racial lines. As Acheampong
argued, in 1976-1994, South Africa's industry was nationalized through the indigenization policy by
homeland governments. After Apartheid, democracy and a new paradigm were established focusing
on local community involvement.
Destinations have different governmental structures and thus they have different tourism policies.
Politicians and public sector play key role in formulating policy frameworks for tourism development.
In the other words, political ideologies and attitudes considerably influence the framework within it
decisions about tourism development are made. The significant ideologies – Conservatism, liberalism,
Marxism, democratic socialism, and social democracy/ The “Third Way”- have particular attitudes
toward tourism as a social and economic phenomena. Conservatism believes in protecting traditions
from the forces which want to change them. As Veal (2010) argued, “in relation to leisure, sport and
tourism and the role of the state therefore, the use of public funds to support elite activity and
‘excellence’ presents no problem to conservatives” (p. 25).
Other political ideology is liberalism, in which issues such as human rights and welfare have been
a center of attention. “The neo-liberal perspective tends to see leisure, sport and tourism as industries”
(Veal, 2010, 27). Liberal fundamentalists believe that most services, which are traditionally provided
for public use, can be effectively used by determining user fee. In recent years, privatization has been
appeared in the huge sectors of the transportation industry including airport and railways. Some of
liberal party have supported for regulating recreation and leisure, but it must be noted that such
perspective is considered by left-wing. However, they have different perspectives in different
countries.
Marxism, based on materialist understanding of societal development, is the other political
ideology which is important to bringing in mind when analysing governments’ political attitudes. As
Groz (1980) argued, Marxist analysis suggests that capitalism by its smart marketing activity keeping
people on the materialist treadmill, trying to achieve the products of the market system in order to
sustain the capitalist system. One perspective believes that if capitalism were replaced by a socialist
society, modern technology could release the masses from daily working (cited in Veal 2010, p.30).
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“… Marxist analysis would point to the divisiveness, elitism and competitiveness of leisure
institutions …” (Clarke & Critcher 1985; cited in Veal 2010, p.30).
Democratic Socialism is another political ideology which has special attitude toward leisure and
tourism. According to Veal (2010), in Democratic Socialist view, governments play critical role in
supporting recreational activities. Democratic socialists see the access to leisure and recreation
facilities as a right, at local level. They also believe that government involvement is essential to
economic development. Other political ideology is social democracy that its attitudes and policies
about tourism are similar to those of democratic socialism. “A social democratic perspective would
see leisure services, including provision for recreational sport, as a social service. The emphasis is on
access for all at minimum cost, preferably free, to the user” (Veal 2010, p.34). In democratic
countries, as crouch and Ritchie (2003) suggested, governments prefer to involve in issues related to
the human behaviour. Additionally, in these regimes, politicians’ survival extremely depends on the
widespread support. Hence, political views and decisions must be compatible with community
concerns about economic, socio cultural and ecological issues. In contrast, in non-democratic
countries, interests of governing elites are preferred, but citizens’ interests and aspirations are not
considered.
Therefore, in analysing destinations’ tourism policies and plans, it is essential to understand
governments' political views. Other important issue in this regard is countries' distinctions in terms of
their development stages. For example, As Yüksel et al. (2005) argues, “Policymaking in developing
countries tends to be highly centralized with national government deciding on many policies and
providing much of the infrastructure and services” (cited in Cetinel and Yolal 2009, p.40). According
to Tosun and Jenkins (1996), tourism development in the most of developing countries, is a result of
the central planning. An example of developing countries is Turkey, where according to Tosun and
Jenkins, government applied tourism both to improve economic growth and to enhance Turkey's
image in the world by adopting an outward-oriented economic development policy, which as Tosun
(1998) argued, could be necessary to oppose the corrupt party politics and social unrest, as well as to
support for democracy in Turkey after its 1980 military coup. After the establishment of the civilian
government in 1983, tourism was seen as a suitable instrument in order to achieving export-led
industrialization in Turkey.
Government policies also can result in, or prevent of negative impacts caused by tourism
development. For example, as Elliott (1997) said, in 1970s, public authorities in Spain simply
accepted developers and economic forces. Despite considerable earnings in foreign currency and
creating a high level of employment, there was little public responsibility in order to environmental
protection; therefore, it led to environmental degradation and it also affected negatively host
communities. The other country from the 1970s, with the same experience and the same kind of
government policy and principles of public sector management, is Thailand. In contrast, Switzerland
has been successful in protecting its natural and cultural aspects because of controlling tourism
development by its conservative governments at the federal and local levels.
Tourism has been affected by political changes happening in the world. A theory acknowledging
this change is three generations of tourism policy theory developed by Fayos- Sola´ (1996). As
Henriksen and Halkier (2009) argued, it focuses on the impact of leadership change in the balance of
power. First generation of tourism policies was based on Fordian perspective emphasizing mass
tourism. Second generation of policies focused on expanding tourism as an industry through
promotion, regulation and subsidies. Third-generation policies emphasized increasing competitiveness
through increasing quality and efficiency in service delivery (Henriken and Halkier, 2009)
1
. Political
1
Cited in: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/tourism/trends-in-the-tourism-industry-of-today-tourism-essay.php
International Conference on Civil Engineering, Architecture, Urban Management and Environment in the
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changes and events have considerably influenced tourism policies and trends in the world; for example, as
Butler and Suntikul (2010) in their book Tourism and Political Change argued, “The economic and
social consequences of the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the adaptive re-invention of
Communist societies in Asia continue to have repercussions on the global stage and at the level of
specific destinations within these regions …” (p.2).
Thus, different political attitudes differently influence tourism development and also determine
different frameworks for developing, managing and directing tourism flow in the destinations. When
analyzing a destination’s competitiveness, it is essential to take such different frameworks into
consideration.
Now, we must return to the main issue of the paper: destination competitiveness. The questions
raised here are that, what does “destination competitiveness” mean? And, what are differences
between destination “competitiveness” and its “attractiveness”? The next section deals with these
issues.
Destination Attractiveness or Destination Competitiveness?
Competitiveness and attractiveness view destinations from two different perspectives (Buhalis
2001; cited in Vengesayi 2003, p.639). According to Vengesayi (2003), these two perspectives
include tourists’ perspective called attractiveness, and destination perspective called competitiveness.
The attractiveness of a destination depends on its visitors’ feelings and opinions about the perceived
capability of the given destination to satisfy their wants and needs. It can be argued that destination
Attractiveness plays as a pull factors in attracting tourists and in encouraging them to spend time and
money in a destination. The analysis of destination competitiveness, as Cracolici & Nijkamp (2008)
argued, not only includes specific tourist attributes of a destination, but also a wide range of tourist
and non-tourist attributes related to both competitiveness of firms and tourists’ perception about
destination, must be involved. Destination competitiveness depends on a destination’s performance in
attracting tourist and developing tourism industry, and in some cases, it can be measured by visitor
numbers, or financial indicators.
As noted previously, core attractors and resources attribute is the primary element which attracts
tourists to a destination. It can be argued that this factor refers to the destination attractiveness; but
these attractors and resources do not contribute to the destination competitiveness, unless be managed
and prepared. In other words, destination competitiveness is a managerial concept and must be
considered in terms of, not only what makes a destination attracting for tourists, but also what really
offers destination to them. Here, we must distinguish between competitive and comparative
advantages in tourism context. As crouch and Ritchie (1999, 2003) mentioned in their model of
destination competitiveness and sustainability, comparative advantage concerns destination’s
endowed resources such as: human, physical, knowledge, and capital resources; historical and cultural
resources; and infrastructure and tourism superstructure. By contrast, competitive advantage refers to
the resources deployment including factors such as: audit and inventory; maintenance; efficiency and
effectiveness; and grow and development. Cracolici & Nijkamp (2008) in their study about
attractiveness and competitiveness of tourist destination in southern Italian regions found that supply
factors such as reception and sympathy of local residents, artistic and cultural cities, landscape,
environment and nature, which are deemed as comparative advantages, have a lower effect on
visitors’ evaluation. As Cracolici & Nijkamp stated, natural and cultural resources are only
International Conference on Civil Engineering, Architecture, Urban Management and Environment in the
Third Millennium, Rasht, Iran-September 4, 2016.
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representations of comparative advantage of tourist destinations, which are necessary, but not
sufficient, unless be changed into the competitive advantages. In addition, they found that the tourist’s
evaluation about destination attractiveness highly depends on elements such as information and tourist
services, cultural events, quality and variety of products, and other elements, which they called
complementary elements of tourist supply. As Cracolici & Nijkamp stated, “destination management
organizations have to act on the complementary elements of tourist supply to maintain or improve the
competitive position, because they have a greater weight on the evaluation process of tourists” (p.
343). Therefore, when discussing about importance of the factors such as natural and cultural
attractions or climate, it must be asked that, are these factors the most important determinants in
determining the “competitiveness” of a destination, or these are important in determining its
“attractiveness”? In the other words, are “core resources and attractors” the most important factors
in creating and enhancing destination “competitiveness” or in creating and increasing its
“attractiveness”?
Conclusion
As noted previously, one question raised about the prior studies on evaluating relative importance
of the DC determinations is that why these studies usually find different results? Or more specifically,
which variables must be considered when analysing importance of competitiveness determinations?
Perhaps, one possible answer is that different findings are resulted from different situations, in which
such studies are done. These situations may include particular political structures; different regimes;
distinct ideologies of politicians; different assumptions and views of experts who are surveyed in the
case studies; and so on. For example, in Crouch’s (2007) study, which was conducted using a survey
of expert judgment by destination managers and tourism researchers, the majority of the respondents
were European, North American and from Australia/New Zealand; but Enright and Newton's (2004)
study was conducted in Asia-Pacific.
Other issue that must be considered is existence of differences in nature of destinations; for
example, in a destination labelled as a place for ecotourism and nature-based activities, natural
resources, landscapes and other natural and environmental aspects are more important than historical
attractions; so, when evaluating destination tourism competitiveness factors, it is important to
consider its nature and brand, particularly, in the cases that more than one destination is considered or
experts with different backgrounds and views from various parts of the world are surveyed.
It is said that the importance of competitiveness determinants also depends on a destination’s
tourism lifecycle. As Kim (2012) argued, developing countries, which are at an early stage of their
tourism lifecycle, must try to develop their resources to be satisfactory attractions toward attracting
tourists. But destinations in maturity stage, such as most of developed countries, are able to attract
tourists with their existing resources and attractions.
Finally, in answering this question that which of “core resources and attractors” and “destination
management” is more important, one possible answer is that core resources and attractors reflect
destination attractiveness, but what makes a destination competitive, is its management factor
including planning, policies, and strategies to apply such resources and attractors toward attract
tourists in the best way. Necessity to consider destination’s core resources and attractors, does not
mean that management factor is less important to be considered, because as discussed before, any step
towards developing such resources to be satisfactory products and attractions, requires management
and planning, which are influenced by political and governmental structures and ideologies within a
destination. As Kerr (2007, p.27) stated, “Governments are a salient fact in tourism in the modern
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world”, and any policies and decisions about tourism development will be impacted by the political
preferences of the governments within the destination and forces in the wider political environment.
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