Tourism and the competitiveness

Tourism: drivers of competitiveness
A travel and tourism-revealing index

Alfredo Ascanio (askain)

The World Economic Forum has launched its first-ever Travel & Tourism report analyzing the drivers of competitiveness in travel and tourism of 124 countries around the world.

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) is composed of a number of “pillars” of T & T competitiveness, of which there are 13 in all. There are:

1. Policy rules and regulations
2. Environmental regulation
3. Safety and security
4. Health and hygiene
5. Prioritization of Travel & Tourism
6. Air transport infrastructure
7. Ground transport infrastructure
8. Tourism infrastructure
9. ICT infrastructure
10. Price competitiveness in the T & T industry
11. Human resources
12. National tourism perception
13. Natural and cultural resources

Switzerland’s safety record and high-quality industry staff contributed to its topping the index. Austria and Germany, ranked 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

France, the most-traveled-to destination in the World, is ranked just outside the top 10 at 12th place. United Kingdom is ranked 10th overall and Spain is ranked 15th overall, just behind France within Europe.

Italy, the country with the highest number of World Heritage sites in the World, ranks a mediocre 33rd in the TTCI ranking.

The United Status is ranked 5th in the overall Index and Canada 7th in the overall Index.

Barbados, at 29th, is the highest-ranked country in the Latin America a Caribbean region and Costa Rica is ranked 41st in the overall Index with Chile (45th), Jamaica (48th). Mexico (49th), Dominican Republic (50th) and Brazil (59th).

Hong Kong was the highest-ranked Asian country (ranked 6th overall), followed closely by Singapore (8th) and the United Arab Emirates was the most competitive Middle Eastern country with an impressive ranking of 18th place.

Australia is ranked 13th overall, just ahead of New Zealand (14th). Other tourist countries are: Malaysia (31nd), Thailand (43nd), just behind Korea (42nd), India (65nd) and China (71nd).

The countries that appear at the end of the overall index are: Bangladesh (120th), Lesotho (121th), Angola (122th) Burundi (123th) and Chad (124th).

Then governments must first make sure the appropriate infrastructure capacity in the place to provide access for domestic and international travelers and ensure that market demand is fully met-in terms of both service quality and efficiency of the T & T sector.

Also governments should engage in deregulation and privatization to stimulate demand and growth and governments must make a determined effort to work together hand-in-hand with the private sector to be able to fully leverage the T & T sector’s potential to stimulate economic efficiency.

The key paragraphs of report were:

1) Adoption of the Tourism Satellite Account to ensure routine provision of data on the macroeconomic important of the sector for policymaking.
2) Tourism should be integrated more explicitly into development processes particularly in national poverty reduction strategy.
3) Creating an agenda of sustainability and security concerns.
4) Introduction and application of new Technologies such mobile commerce and electronic payment.
5) To create new long-haul hubs to play an important role in global air traffic flows.
6) Define target consumer groups and effective tourism marketing

What it does not say report is that exists a high concentration of the tourist wealth in 16 leader countries that catch 74% of the international tourism leaving 26% for the rest of the 108 countries. The Tour Operator, integrated in great businesses, “produces” and sends the tourists to those sites where they have his economic interests.

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