Executive Summary
People engage in tourism for different purposes such as pleasure, recreation, holiday, sport, business, visiting friends, missions, meetings, conferences, studies and religion purposes among other reasons. According to tourist travel motivation, one is subjected to specific regulations. Success in international tourism market is attained by its overall attractiveness and the integrity of the services delivered to the visitors which must exceed that of many other alternative destinations open to the potential visitors.
There exists a model of destination competitiveness which is linked to a set of indicators that allow identification of the relative strengths and weaknesses of different tourism destinations. The model is used by various industries and governments to raise tourism numbers and to monitor its expenditure and other economic impacts. The notion of destination competitiveness is consistent with the notion of ‘competitiveness’ in the international business and economics literature.
Sustainable tourism is the processes that satisfactorily meet the tourist and host communities’ demands, and those which ensure the future of the society is protected. These sustainability issues are being addressed by the government at the local, regional and national level and international levels. The other ways have been the given role of privatization of tourism sector which is common in many countries.
The issue of competitiveness and sustainable tourism is a major concern in the business community and in the tourism sector. It increasingly addresses the face of growing globalization and more intense domestic competition. This is an issue that is receiving attention by the industry, government and academics in the international phenomenon.
The increased pressures of establishing foreign markets and world trade organization especially tourism businesses no longer relies on protectionist policies set by their governments to sustain their survival. To ensure survival in the global market, a country should be in a position to identify inefficiencies that exists within the governance so that they can be rectified.
Introduction
Destination competitiveness is strongly associated with the ability of the destination to convey services and goods of better utility. Tourism competitiveness includes the cost and attractiveness of the place being toured and has been viewed as the capacity of a place to sustain its marketability over time. Tourism competitiveness has also been defined as the ability to create and integrate value added products which sustain its resources while maintaining its market advantage in relative to competitors (Dwyer and Kim 2).
In this paper, competitiveness is defined as both a relative concept and a multifaceted concept. It is associated with four major groups of thought namely a) comparative advantage perspective b) a strategy and management perspective c) a historical and socio–cultural perspective and d) development of indicators of national competitiveness. The paper also discusses the concept of international sustainable tourism and how the two concepts inter-relate to each other in international tourism industry.
Destination Competitiveness
According to literature, comparative advantage together with price competitiveness arises from the recognition of the potential importance of destination price competitiveness in influencing visitor flow. Price sensitivity is a major factor that affects travelers in certain markets. Price is influenced by the destination technological advancement, the prevailing policies, industry competition and influences from multinational enterprises.
Strategy and management perspective arises from appreciating the importance of the tourism resources which influence and sustain competitive advantage (Dwyer and Kim 2). This basically implies that to attain the sustainable competitive advantage, the institution should focus more on developing and maintaining meaningful assets, skills and strategies that will exploit the resource to the maximum to neutralize the competitors’ assets and skills. These resources will range from skills of employees, assets, cash flow.
Capital investment, organization structure, organization environment, alignment and its strategic, generic planning which is customer oriented. Considering the fact that destination competitiveness must be essentially linked to the competitiveness of the tourism industry, the exploitation of the above named variables is recognized in the model destination competiveness (Dwyer and Kim 2).
Destination competitiveness is also influenced by history, politics and culture of a place. Morals, cultural values and moral discipline of a place develop climate that can influence destination competitiveness in positive or negative way. However, not all influences on the destination competitiveness are objectively quantifiable. As a matter of fact, in tourism context, there is distinction that is involves reality of the situation (crime statistics on tourist’s victims and price competitiveness) and their effect on tourists’ perceptions.
For instance, in terms of security, comfort levels and aesthetic appeal to the tourist. Tourist perception should be separately recognized in the destination competitiveness model. There exists arguments for developing tourism competitiveness model arguing that there is fundamental difference between the nature of the tourism ‘product’ and those other of goods and services.
For instance, in tourism, comparative advantage relates to climate scenery, flora, and fauna whilst competitive advantage relates to tourism infrastructure such as hotels, events attractions and transport networks, the quality of management, skills of workers and government policy.
On this note, a country’s resources are very imperative when it comes to competitive advantage in international tourism. These resources usually do not suffer depletion despite the fact that people pay for their use. This explains why tourism product is virtually a different form of economic exchange than the sale of physical resources (Dwyer and Kim 3).
Indicators o f destination competitiveness
There exists a model of destination competitiveness suggested by various authors. This model adjoins the major elements of national and firm competitiveness with the main elements of destination competitiveness. This model categorizes the determinants of the destination competitiveness under several major headings.
To signify the value of resource base for destination competitiveness, core resources are dividend into a) inherited (endowed) and b) created. Inherited resources are further grouped as natural (mountains, Lakes, rivers etc) and Cultural (handicrafts, language, customs etc).
The core resources, supporting factors and resource are major the attributes of destination competitiveness that attract tourists and form the foundation for sustainable tourism industry and the foundation for destination competitiveness (Dwyer and Kim 4). Destination management factors improve the appeal of the core resources, as well as the supporting factors improve the quality and competitiveness of the destination.
These may include Destination Management organizations, Destination Marketing Management, Destination Policy, planning and development amongst others. Demand conditions consists of “demand awareness, perception and preferences” (Dwyer and Kim 4). Awareness is generated through marketing activities. Tourism depends on the equivalence between what is preferred and what is perceived. Situational conditions are the forces in the external environments that influence tourism in one way or another.
These relates to the economic, social, cultural, political, legal and governmental policies to regulate tourism. These trends and events in a destination can impact tourism by preventing opportunities and threats to their operations. However, to sustain the destination competitiveness the tourism must not only be sustainable economically but also ecologically, socially, culturally and politically as well (Dwyer and Kim 4).
Sustainable tourism
Visitation of sites of cultural and natural significance dates from the time of Greek Antiquity. This is evidenced by the invention of the Seven Wonders of the World by Hellenistic. Currently, about 157 countries have ratified the World Heritage Convection of 1972. This heritage is devoted towards protecting the Worlds cultural and natural heritage.
Other 582 sites are said to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. There are various and most common terminologies used to define sustainable tourism. They include eco-tourism, green travel, environmentally and culturally responsible tourism, fair trade and ethical travel. These words suggested are also the accepted definition for sustainable tourism by the World Tourism Organization (Enderson 1).
Sustainable tourism is defined as the “tourism which leads to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs are fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological process, and biological diversity and life support systems” (WTO 1). It also suggests that sustainable tourism is the processes that satisfactorily meet the tourist and host communities demands, and those which ensure the future of the society is protected.
These sustainability issues are being addressed by the government local, regional and national level and international levels. The other ways have been the given role of privatization of tourism sector which is common in many countries (WTO 1).
There are four strategic approaches that have been identified to minimize the adverse effects of tourism on the protected area to sustain tourism internationally. These included the management of the supply demands of the tourist. This is enhanced via increasing the space and the time to ensure it is enough space for accommodation. Secondly, the visitation demand should be managed in the proper manner.
The demand can also be managed through establishing restrictions on the duration of stay, the number of tourists in a given protected area and the determining the type of the activities that are environmentally friendly. Then, it is suggested that the resources can be managed through hardening of the sites and the specification and developing the facilities and the capabilities that era essential to the environment and the tourists.
This would in turn manage the impact of use, which would modify the type and the use on the protected areas. Additionally, the ICLEI puts the major policies’ being addressed in sustaining the tourism industry to include the promotion of national strategies for sustainable development in the tourism industry. The promotion entails the decentralization of environmental management to regional and the local levels.
Other management practices involved are the use of both regulatory mechanisms and the economic instruments with the support of voluntary initiative by the community and the government to the industry. Eventually, all that effort will lead to sustainable tourism not only at the international level and to the whole world at large (WTO 5).
Relationship between destination competitiveness and International sustainable tourism
To attain a sustainable international tourism and destination competitive advantage, the institution should focus more on developing and maintaining meaningful assets, skills and strategies that will exploit the resource to the maximum to neutralize the competitor’s assets and skills. These resources will range from skills of employees, assets, cash flow. Capital investment, organization structure, organization environment, alignment and its strategic, generic planning which is customer oriented (UNCSD 3).
Considering the fact that destination competitiveness must be essentially linked to the competitiveness of the tourism industry, the exploitation of the above named variables is recognized in the model destination competiveness. For example, Chinese tourism has been low for a long time due to the political instability and economic situation of China. China has been amongst the leading emerging markets in the global village (Verhelst 10).
The secret between China successes in most of its sectors including tourism industry lies in its ability to associate domestic competitiveness and sustainable tourism, thus attracting more tourists and investors in the country. A good example is the China smooth and friendly bilateral relations with Kenya. This cooperation has had a rapid headway in areas of electric power, communications, investment and project contract.
The bilateral economy and trade agreements signed between China and Kenya such as the Agreement on economic and technological cooperation between People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Kenya and the Agreement on promotion and protection of investments in 2001. The two countries have signed a total of 12 bilateral accords over the past three years (Onjala 23).
Additionally, this bilateral relation has expanded cooperation in the fields of culture and education, health, tourism and environmental protection and sport build up for mutual understanding and friendship between the two nations.
Chinese has also invested in tourism sector such as creation of direct flight connections between various destinations. Another example of destination competitiveness is the introduction of “Approved Destination Status.” This is a mechanism where the China government has made it easy for outbound tourism industry. This involves easy Visa processing and good relations to the countries where visitors hail promoting tourism industry (Lim and Wang 1; Anon 1).
Works Cited
Anon. (2008). A fair go for tourists compliance for the tourism industry in Australia. Government of Australia, 2008. Web.
Dwyer, Larry and Kim Chulwon. “Destination competitiveness and Bilateral Tourism flows between Australia and Korea”. The Journal of Tourism Studies 14.2 (2003): 1. Web.
Enderson, Kris. Sustainable Tourism and Cultural Heritage: A review of development assistance and its potential to promote sustainability. NWHO, 1999. Web.
Lim, Can, and Wang Yan. A time series analysis of Chinese Outbound Tourism to Australia. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australian and New Zealand, 2003. Web.
Onjala, Joseph. “Scoping Study on China Advice Economic Relations: The case study of Kenya”. African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), 2008. Web.
UNCSD. Tourism and sustainable development: Sustainable Tourism; A nongovernmental organization perspective. Department of Economic and social affairs, 1999. Web.
Verhelst, Veronique. Study of the outbound tourism industry of the Peoples republic of china: the probability of a bilateral ADS Agreement between the PRC and the Shengen Area. Ethesis, 2003. Web.
WTO. An extension of the WTO manila declaration on the social impacts of tourism1997. Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, 1999. Web.