Advancing Destination Competitiveness Research

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Advancing Destination CompetitivenessResearchOzan Bahar a & Metin Kozak ba Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences , MuglaUniversity , 48170, Mugla, Turkeyb School of Tourism and Hospitality Management , Mugla University ,48170, Mugla, TurkeyPublished online: 13 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Ozan Bahar & Metin Kozak (2007) Advancing Destination CompetitivenessResearch, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 22:2, 61-71, DOI: 10.1300/J073v22n02_05

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Advancing Destination Competitiveness Research:Comparison Between Tourists and Service Providers

Ozan BaharMetin Kozak

ABSTRACT. This paper presents findings of a completed research project on the competitive po-sition of Turkey vis-à-vis five countries in the Mediterranean basin: Spain, Italy, Greece, Franceand Cyprus. These partner countries are self-selected by foreign tourists and service providers (ho-teliers, travel agents or tour guides) as the direct competitor to Turkey. The discussion of findingsis based upon the analysis of data gathered from 1,086 respondents through a six-week period inthe summer of 2004. Findings obtained from the two groups were then compared to each other us-ing t-test. Results suggest that both foreign tourists and service providers are homogeneous to sug-gest that Turkey is stronger on the friendliness of local people, but is weaker on the physicaldistance to the target markets and the effective using of methods for promotion and advertising.The detailed assessment of findings and implications is also discussed.doi:10.1300/J073v22n02_05[Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mailaddress: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> � 2007 by TheHaworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Destination competitiveness, direct comparison, Turkey, Mediterranean tourism

INTRODUCTION

Tourismisadynamic industrymakingapos-itive contribution to the development of townsand cities and the well-being of their local resi-dents. This might be a potential reason so as towhy destination competitiveness is a vital issuefor providing better quality of facilities and ser-vices and increasing inputs through tourism ac-tivities (Ritchie&Crouch,2003). Moreover, astourismisa labour-intensiveindustry, itsdevel-opment in economically less-developed placesmight offer advantages into the local and na-tional economy. Tourists benefit from lowerprices resulting from lower costs and, as a re-

sult, additional jobs can be generated. Despitethis,majorelementsof theseplacessuchaseco-logical and cultural values may be at risk to re-ceive damage from tourism activities due to thelack of public and legislative control. This fail-ure brings the trouble of declining and weaken-ing the level of contribution to the economicprosperity of the place. In order to have a pow-erful economy,eachdestinationhas to competewith the restof others, attract technology-basedinvestments and offer sustainable tourismproducts and services.

While it is undoubtedly true that tourist des-tinations are accepted to be a key component ofthe tourism system, as in every industry and

Ozan Bahar (E-mail: [email protected]) is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Economics and Administra-tive Sciences at Mugla University (48170, Mugla, Turkey). Metin Kozak (E-mail: M.Kozak@superonline. com) isAssociate Professor in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Mugla University (48170, Mugla,Turkey).

Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Vol. 22(2) 2007Available online at http://jttm.haworthpress.com

� 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J073v22n02_05 61

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business, they are also in competitionwith eachother to obtain a greater proportion of interna-tional tourism by attracting more internationaltourists (Heath & Wall, 1992). Certainly, thereareanumberof reasons to indicateas towhy themeasurement and determination of destinationcompetitiveness has become so important intravel and tourism (Kozak, 2004a). Develop-ments in international tourism and travel haveintensified competitiveness between overseastourist destinations. New destinations haveemerged in the market, some existing onemake further progress, others decline as tour-ists and suppliers are now becoming moreconcerned about environmental and culturalvalues, e.g., the Caribbean and the easternMediterranean. Tour operators and the mediaare having an increasing impact on the market.Tourists are also more experienced and knowl-edgeable. These pressures appear to increasethe competition between tourist destinations(Kozak & Rimmington, 1999).

In a broader context of destination competi-tiveness research, Kozak (2004b) emphasisesthat a destination needs to be compared withmore than two destinations. In doing so, desti-nation managers may be able to understand thelevel of their own performance not only againstone specific destination but also against theirmajor competitors. Taking weaknesses of thepast research into consideration, the study re-ported in this paper has sought to develop apractical method for measuring the direct com-petitive position of one destination on a relativebasis to other similar destinations presumablyin the same competitiveness set. How this canbe done will be the subject matter of this paper.First, thepaperexaminespast researchondesti-nation competitiveness and comparison on thebasis of their contents, strengths and limita-tions. Then, it presents the discussion of find-ings obtained through an empirical study. Fi-nally, feedback obtained both from tourists andservice providers is cautiously evaluated toachieve the research objective.

LITERATURE REVIEW

While it is known that a significant propor-tion of the tourism literature on destinationcompetitivenesshavebeenproducedwithin the

last few decades (Goodrich, 1977; Haahti &Yavas, 1983; Heath & Wall, 1992; Kozak &Rimmington, 1999), the most comprehensivestudy so far has been related to that of Ritchieand Crouch (2003). These authors applied thecompetitiveness of the service industry to thecontext of tourism destinations on the basis ofcountries, industries, products, and companies.To these authors, the possibilities of a destina-tion that provides a high standard of living forits citizens represent the competitiveness ofthat destination. Thus, the most competitivedestinationin the longtermis that theonewhichcreates well-being for its residents. Needless tosay, Ritchie and Crouch argue that it is also es-sential to set up the development of the destina-tion on a sound basis in order to maintain a cer-tain level of competitiveness. Unfortunately,standing as a conceptual study and/or modelbecomes as the major weakness of this book.

From the empirical standpoint, the substan-tial majority of studies in both these early andlater research streams focus on using variousmethodsonhowtopracticallymeasuredestina-tion competitiveness. Of these, for example,through the Duplication of Purchase Law andusing primary data, Mansfeld and Romaniuk(2002) attempted to investigate which coun-tries closely compete with each other. Findingssuggest that Scotland and Ireland competemore directly for the British tourist market dueto the position of their neighbourhood loca-tions. A similar pattern also holds for other sub-stitutecountriespairedsuchasFranceandItaly,Hong Kong and Singapore, and Mexico andCanada. From this, one may speculate thatneighbourhood destinations could be perceivedby the target market to take place in the samecompetitivenessset.Ontheotherhand, throughthe Market Share Analysis and using the sec-ondary data, Aguas, Rita, and Costa (2004)identified that France, Greece and Spain cameout as the winners, whilst Italy and Portugalwere the losers in the competitive position ofthe EU member countries in a period of sixyears between 1996 and 2001.

Increased competition has given rise to awide range of studies dealing with the develop-mentofmethodsonhowtobettermeasurecom-petitiveness among tourist destinations. A re-view of the tourism marketing and economicsliterature suggests that at least two approaches

62 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING

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are in use. One approach has sought to identifyelements of qualitative measures that influencedestination outputs by generating the primarydata and to examine each destination’s strengthsand weaknesses on the basis of generic vari-ables, e.g., customer satisfaction, image, andrepeat intention (e.g., Driscoll, Lawson, &Niven, 1994; Enright & Newton, 2004; Hsu,Wolfe, & Kang, 2004; Kozak, 2002; Yoon,2002). The second stream of work has been con-cerned with the introduction of quantitativemeasures that contribute to the destinationoutput itself using the secondary data, e.g.,tourist arrivals, tourism income and occupancyrates (e.g., Dwyer, Forsyth, & Rao, 2002;Papatheodorou,2002).Whiletheextant literaturedocuments the bulk of primary research on thesubjectofdestinationcompetitivenessanditsele-ments, one may argue that there is no consensusyet in relation to the number of attributes or vari-ables included, the profile of sample populationapproachedorthetypeofmethodologyemployed.

First, the number of variables in empiricalstudies ranges to a great extent from one studyto another. The median circles around 20 vari-ables (Enright & Newton, 2004; Hsu et al.,2004; Javalgi, Thomas, & Rao, 1992; Yoon,2002). In the 1990s, the measurement of com-petitivenesswassubjectmostly to theconsider-ation of price as the only variable itself. Thecomplex structure of today’s economic struc-ture has led us to take into account a greaternumber of variables in competitiveness re-search. In tourism context, the elements of des-tination attractiveness classified under twomaincategories (Laws,1995) shouldbeusedasa background for destination competitivenessresearch. The primary features, called naturalattractions, include climate, ecology, cultureand traditional architecture. Called as thehand-made elements, secondary destinationfeatures are comprised of the developments in-troduced particularly for tourist groups, e.g.,hotels, catering, transport, and entertainment.One may suggest that these two main elementsmake an extensive contribution to the attrac-tiveness of destinations and thereby identifytheir position in the international league ofcompetitiveness. Measuring the performanceof these elements in the eyes of tourists orservice providers deserves advancing theresearch on tourism competitiveness.

Next, the reviewof the literaturebothondes-tination marketing and competitiveness re-search has indicated lack of interest while tak-ing into consideration how service providersperceive changes within their current destina-tions in comparison to their rivals elsewhere. Inthe existing stream of research, various factorswere employed to construct an instrument thatwas used to survey either only tourists (e.g.,Hsu et al., 2004) or only service providers (e.g.,Enright & Newton, 2004; Yoon, 2002). Thelink between these two groups is still lacking.As an element of marketing management, des-tinations could focus their efforts on gainingfeedback not only from tourists but also fromthosesubjectswhodirectlybenefit fromtourismdevelopment. The rationale of such an approachstems from the fact that service providers, withtheir long-term experiences in the tourist busi-ness of their own country and also with theirfirst-hand observations in other countries, mayresult in a more realistic observation. This com-parison is both theoretically and practically use-ful and one which is often neglected in tourismcompetitiveness research. This study will there-fore empirically focus on this important issue.

Additionally, despite there are many at-tempts to understand the meaning of destina-tion competitiveness, but given that there is lit-tle theoretical basis, Kozak (2004b) hascriticized this stream of research as lacking infinding a better solution to achieve the researchobjective. Simply, it is claimed that a full ac-count of destination competitiveness analysishas not received widespread recognition in thetourism literature. For example, as indicatedearlier, an emerging research stream has devel-oped since the early 1980s. However, with lim-ited exceptions (Kozak, 2004b; Kozak &Rimmington, 1999), much of which has beenundertaken without evidence that respondentshad actually been to all sample destinations inperson (e.g., Enright & Newton, 2004; Hsu etal., 2004; Javalgi et al., 1992). Our feeling isthat it would be easier for someone if s/he has aprevious experience to compare two alterna-tives in a simple form that can be helpful to gen-erate implications. Otherwise, findings do notaccurately reflect the real performance of desti-nations on specific attributes. This is anotherpiece of research that will be addressed in this

Ozan Bahar and Metin Kozak 63

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study and deserves further discussion abouthow to expand the literature.

METHODOLOGY

Through a review of the previously pub-lished research material in the literature (e.g.,Kozak, 2001, 2004b; Kozak & Rimmington,1999), a questionnaire form with three partswas developed to make a direct comparison notonly across the paired destinations, but alsoacross the respondents. The first part aimed toidentify other 11 Mediterranean destinationsthe subjects had made at least one prior visit.The second part was designed to allow the sub-jects to choose only one destination as a partnerto compare with their holiday in Turkey. Thethird part, with its 23 questions on the basis of a5-point scale ranging from “more competi-tive” to “not competitive at all”, gave an op-portunity to understand what attributes wereperceived to more competitive than the se-lected paired destination. This techniquestems from the assumption that people aremore likely to compare something reliably byconsidering their own experiences. This isdone on the basis of ‘something here is betterthan another in X’. Similar types of scaleshave previously been applied within the mar-keting literature to measure how consumersperceiveanyserviceorproductcomparedwiththeir expectations (disconfirmation method).“Don’t know” option was also labelled on thescale for those who might have no opinionabout their experiences with any destination at-tribute (Dhar & Simonson, 2003). The last partwas prepared to point out how likely the sub-jects to perceive the overall competitiveness ofTurkey.

The instrument was designed in multiplelanguages: English, German, Russian, andTurkish. No back-translation was applied dueto financial and time constraints. The question-naire was pretested on 10 hotel managers andtravel agents operating in Antalya and 20 tour-ists visiting any resort in Mugla. The idea be-hind selecting a different location for hotelmanagers and travel agents lies on a possibilitynot to approach the same subjects once againwhile delivering the main survey. On the basisof the pretest, several questions in the survey

were simplified and/or rewritten. The finaldraft of the instrument was screened by a panelof both academics and practitioners to checkthe clarity and suitability of the questions.

The population for this study consisted oftwo groups, international tourists and tourismpractitioners in Turkey. In an effort to learnmore about the perceptions of these twogroups, the questionnaire form was distrib-uted to international tourists visiting the re-sorts in Mugla, a province on the south-westpart of Turkey, and among service providersengaged in the tourist business in this part ofthecountry.Subjectswere requested todirectlycompare the competitive position of Turkeywith a paired destination on the basis of 23 at-tributes.

DATA COLLECTION

Data were gathered for different days of atwo-week period in the summer of 2004 by ap-plying a self-administered questionnaire in-strument. The survey for tourists was carriedout at two internationalairports operating in theprovince Mugla. Questionnaires were deliv-ered at each airport’s departure lounge upontourists completed their check-in procedures.No particular sampling procedure was em-ployedwhiledistributingthesurveyforms.Thereason was to retain as much usable data as pos-sible at the end. Tourists were selectedat differ-ent times of the day in order to obtain a morerepresentative sample. Questionnaires weredistributed and collected back in the presenceof researchers and their two trained-assistants.Of the 881 completed responses returned forthis part of the survey, 720 were usable.

The survey for service providers was carriedout for a period of four weeks in between Julyand August 2004 by visiting each respondent intheplace theyworked.Similar to the tourist sur-vey, a face-to-face data collection method wasapplied for this survey as well. The attentionwas paid to interview only one person in thesame place in one setting in order to preventsampling bias and coloring personal opinions.In total,429respondentswere interviewed.Theremaining part was not reached due to variousreasons, e.g., non-availability, out-of-service,and so on. Of these, the response from 366 par-


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ticipantswas includedinafurtherdataanalysis.The discardeddatawith its smallnumber repre-sented those who tended to make a comparisonbetween Turkey and other Mediterranean coun-tries that remain much less in the pool for com-parison.

DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

Completed usable surveys by destinationsareshowninTable1.Althoughtheexpectedas-sumption was to consider all the 11 Mediterra-nean countries in the competitiveness analysisof Turkey, this study examines five tourism re-gions in the Mediterranean basin that are nomi-nated by informants as the direct competitor toTurkey. These tourism regions include Spain,Italy, Greece, France, and Cyprus. Accordingto an econometric study of tourism demand,these countries provide both substitute andcomplementary products for the West-Euro-pean tourist market (Syriopoulos & Sinclair,1993). The rest had small quantity of data.

Nearly one-third of the respondents had noexperience in Turkey before (28.3%). This ra-tio was also almost similar for Spain (24.6%),France (34.6%) and Greece (39.0%). On theotherhand, approximately thehalfhadnotbeento Italy (48.4%) while Cyprus had the majorityof non-visitors (71.5%). In regard of the distri-bution of visits and non-visits by service pro-viders, Spain had the highest proportion of

non-visitors (74.3%), followed by France(67.5%), Italy (64.0%) and Cyprus (58.7%) re-spectively. Greece was represented with thelowest proportion of non-visitors (51.6%). AsTable 2 shows, the majority of the sample pop-ulation had a very recent visit to the countriesunder investigation. This finding might beconsidered as evidence to speculate that the re-spondents might incline to make a comparisonwith a country where they had a recent visit.

Using the SPSS 11.0 tool, various statisticaltechniques were conducted in order to analysethe data. First, a reliability analysis (Cronbach’salpha) was performed to test the reliability andinternal consistency of the survey instrument.This stage is significant in designing effectiveresearch, as a part of the proposed qualitativemeasures of destination competitiveness, in or-der toensure that findingsareaccurateand tobeable to discuss further implications. As Table 3indicates, the scale is internally reliable (alpha =.92 for the tourist survey and .90 for the serviceprovider survey). This met the minimum stan-dard (.70) suggested by Nunnally (1978).When any item was deleted from the list, it didnot substantially affect the value of alpha. Theitem-to-total correlation indicating the degreeof an item’s relationship to the total score hadfairly high scores ranging between .31 (attrac-tiveness of natural environment) and .67 (stan-dard of health services).

The 23 items of the scale were subjected tofactor analysis. Two statistics were used to test


TABLE 1. Distribution of Visited Countries Considered for Comparison

Tourists Countries Service ProvidersRank n % Rank n %

1 267 30.3 Spain 4 58 13.52 267 30.3 Greece 1 123 28.73 73 8.3 Italy 3 60 14.04 64 7.3 France 5 56 13.15 49 5.6 Cyprus 2 69 16.1

Sub-total 720 81.8 Sub-total 366 85.46 47 5.3 Portugal 10 7 1.67 40 4.5 Egypt 6 26 6.18 30 3.4 Tunisia 7 11 2.69 19 2.2 Yugoslavia 11 4 0.9

10 13 1.5 Morocco 8 8 1.911 12 1.4 Malta 9 7 1.6

Total 881 100.0 Total 429 100.0

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if the factor analysis was appropriate for thisstudy (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black,1995). First, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)statisticwas calculatedas .91which is “marvel-ous”. Second, Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity wasconducted, yielding a significant Chi-Squarevalue in order to test the significance of the cor-relation matrix (� = 3666.1, Sig. < .001). Find-ings of both tests suggested that the factor anal-ysis was appropriate for this study. In addition,the communalities ranged from 0.38 to 0.71,suggesting that the variance of the original val-ues were fairly explained by the common fac-tors. The factor analysis explained 53.77 per-cent of the total variance. The first factorincludes the cultural and natural attractiveness.

The second factor was described with the qual-ity of tourist services. The third factor wasassociated with the availability of tourist facili-ties and activities.The last factor was attributedto the quality of infrastructure (Table 4).

Moreover, t-tests were used to determinewhether significant differences existed be-tween the mean scores assigned to each itemand individual factor grouping by touristsversus service providers. Generally speak-ing, the results pertaining to comparisonacross variables suggest that the attractive-ness of cultural and natural sources hastopped the list for both sample groups. This isfollowed by the other three variables in vary-ing orders (see Figure 1). More specifically,


TABLE 2. The Distribution of the Latest Visits to the Selected Countries by Years (%)

Group Prior to1990

1990-1994

1995-1999

2000-2004

Noresponse

Total

Tourists 2.1 3.0 12.9 73.6 8.4 100.0Service providers 2.7 4.9 18.6 62.4 11.4 100.0

TABLE 3. Reliability Analysis of Variables

Variables Tourist Survey Practitioner SurveyMean Alpha Mean Alpha

1. Quality of tourist services 3.83 .919 3.48 .8892. Diversity of tourism products 3.64 .919 3.69 .8893. Level of hospitality / friendliness 4.10 .920 4.37 .8934. Attractiveness of natural environment 3.68 .920 4.15 .8945. Overall value for money 3.88 .922 3.53 .8916. Standard of hygiene and sanitation 3.31 .920 2.92 .8907. Quality of local food and beverage 3.64 .918 3.34 .8898. Standard of accommodation facilities 3.46 .918 3.44 .8909. Availability of nightlife and entertainment 3.50 .919 3.37 .893

10. Availability of sport activities and facilities 3.49 .921 3.27 .88811. Availability of shopping facilities 3.71 .920 3.68 .88912. Standard of health services 3.36 .917 2.84 .88813. Standard of facilities and activities for children 3.42 .919 2.83 .88914. Quality of sea and beaches 3.56 .921 3.60 .89115. Quality of local transport network and services 3.55 .920 2.95 .89016. Quality of telecommunication network 3.22 .918 3.42 .88917. Quality of banking services 3.31 .919 3.47 .88818. Quality of the destination airport 3.38 .920 3.42 .88919. Attractiveness of cultural sources 3.72 .918 4.14 .89220. Attractiveness of historical sources 3.79 .920 4.22 .89121. Distance to my home country 3.03 .921 3.20 .89322. Overall attractiveness 3.80 .918 3.87 .88823. Effectiveness of the promotion and publicity 3.44 .919 2.51 .892Alpha .923 .895

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compared one group to the other, obvious dif-ferences emerged for all the four factor group-ings (Table 5). First, service providers arelikely to report that Turkey has a much bettercompetitive position than the other five com-peting destinations in the Mediterranean areaonculturalandnaturalattractiveness(p< .001).Second, tourists’ relative importance appearsto override the service providers’ when we ex-amine the quality of tourist services and theavailability of tourist facilities and activities(p < .001). Third, there appears to be aninsignificant difference between the two groupsfor the quality of infrastructure when we exam-ine the competitive position of Turkey acrossall competing destinations (p > .05). Next, bothservice providers and tourists are likely to ob-

serve that Turkey is more competitive than Cy-prus while it is relatively less competitive thanFrance, according to the former group. Finally,across the sample in general, tourists are morefavourable than service providers indicatingthat Turkey has a stronger competitive positionin international tourism than the partner desti-nations (p < .001).

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The primary purpose of this study was to in-vestigate how the perceived competitive posi-tion of a tourist destination varies across tour-ists and service providers. The study alsoenabled us to test the use of a questionnaire in-


TABLE 4. Factor Analysis of Destination Competitiveness Items

Factors Factorloading

Eigenvalue

Varianceexplained

Meanscore

F ratio Alpha p

FACTOR 1 (CULTURAL & NATURAL ATTRACTIVENESS) 7.624 33.149 3.84 77.96 .8076 .000

Attractiveness of historical attractions .821

Attractiveness of cultural attractions .807

Attractiveness of natural environment .713

Level of hospitality / friendliness .682

Overall attractiveness .616

Diversity of tourism products .485

Quality of sea and beaches .431

FACTOR 2 (QUALITY OF TOURIST SERVICES) 2.454 10.671 3.41 63.50 .7168 .000

Standard of hygiene and sanitation .741

Quality of tourist services .696

Quality of local food and beverage .630

Overall value for money .539

Standard of facilities and activities for children .520

Standard of accommodation facilities .431

FACTOR 3 (AVAILABILITY OF TOURIST FACILITIES &ACTIVITIES)

1.275 5.545 3.30 63.75 .7432 .000

Availability of nightlife and entertainment .722

Availability of sport activities and facilities .721

Availability of shopping facilities .568

Standard of health services .542

Effectiveness of the promotion and publicity .489

Quality of local transport network and services .450

FACTOR 4 (QUALITY OF INFRASTRUCTURE) 1.013 4.406 3.26 28.15 .7160 .000

Quality of banking services .723

Quality of the destination airport .704

Quality of telecommunication network .663

Distance to my home country .596Note: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy = .910; total variance explained at 53.7%.

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strument that will be of help to directly measurecompetitive performance of the paired destina-tions. Generally speaking, the research find-ings suggest that there is a positive correlationbetween what tourists and service providersperceiveinrespectof theculturalandnaturalat-tractiveness as the most important aspect ofdestination competitiveness. Subjects tend toassign equal ratingson thequalityof infrastruc-ture for comparison of Turkey with all destina-tions. Similarly, all the factor variables do notlead to any difference between Turkey and Cy-

prus. More specifically, the preliminaryfindings indicate that both tourists and serviceproviders agree on that Turkey is stronger onthefriendlinessof localpeople,but isweakeronthe physical distance to target markets and onthe effective use of promotion and advertisingtools.

Ontheotherhand, thedegreeofattributeper-ception varies across the sample, e.g., touristsand service providers, when we examine thecompetitive position of Turkey on the basis ofcultural and natural attractiveness, quality of


Service Providers

5

4

3

2

1

0

Spain

Spain

Greece

Greece

Cyprus

Cyprus

Italy

Italy

France

France

Cultural and Natural

Cultural and Natural

Attractiveness

Attractiveness

Quality of Services

Quality of Services

Facilities and Activities

Facilities and Activities

Quality of Infrastructure

Quality of Infrastructure

Tourists

4,5

4

3,5

3

2,5

2

1,5

1

0,5

0

FIGURE 1. Competitive Position of Turkey vis-à-vis Selected Mediterranean Destinations

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services, and quality of infrastructure. Whileboth tourists and service providers felt that cul-tural and natural sightseeing was the mostpromising attribute for destination competi-tiveness, service providers felt that this aspectwas significantly more important than did tour-ists.Tourists’priority is theremainingtwovari-ables. Recalling the classification of destina-tion attributes (Laws, 1995), one may speculatethat service providers are likely to pay moreconsideration to the importance of primary at-tractions (i.e., cultural and natural attractions)while evaluating one’s competitive positionwhereas tourists tend to focus their attention ontheavailabilityofsecondaryattractions(i.e., the

qualityof tourist services and the availabilityoftourist facilities and activities).

From the standpoint of destination market-ing, the paper demonstrates the importance ofstudying competitive factors for both suppliersand consumers. It is important for a tourist todecide on which destination to choose for a fu-ture vacationand may affect tourist satisfactionat the end. For suppliers, how performing a des-tination is likely to contribute to tourists’ satis-factionand to increase their repeatbusiness andpositiveword-of-mouth advertising. It is possi-ble tofocusmarketingeffortson thesevariableswhich perform comparatively less than othercompeting destinations. The evaluation of des-


TABLE 5. Competitive Position of Turkey vis-à-vis Selected Mediterranean Destinations

Factors Mean Scores t value Sig. t

Tourists Service Providers

Overall view

Cultural and Natural Attractiveness 3.69 4.03 �7.238 .000

Quality of Tourist Services 3.54 3.24 7.227 .000

Quality of Tourist Facilities and Activities 3.45 3.08 5.063 .000

Quality of Infrastructure 3.14 3.34 �2.767 .006

Compared to Spain





Compared to Greece



Quality of Facilities and Activities 3.51 3.11 2.521 .013


Compared to Cyprus





Compared to Italy




Quality of Infrastructure 3.22 3.22 0.563 .576

Compared to France





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tination performance is also important from theperspective of both suppliers and consumers tounderstand how their opinions correspond witheach other. It is reasonable to expect that a tour-ist will be unlikely to visit any destinationwhere its service providers suspect that theyperform worse than their competing destina-tions in some respects. Similarly, tourists mayneed to revise their preferences or expectationswhile coming to such a destination or they maychoose a better performing destination. Largedifferences in revised preferences or expecta-tions may result in a loss to the main destina-tion’s site. As a result, an understanding ofstrengths and weaknesses may guide destina-tion marketers in identifying their positive andnegative parts, predicting the possible futurethreats and communicating the marketingmessages to target customer groups, suppliersor intermediaries.

In summary, a majority of prior research inthe area of destination marketing has focusedon understanding factors that determine thepower of tourist destinations in internationalcompetitiveness from only one side, e.g., tour-ists. Our study moves beyond the existingmod-els of destination competitiveness and adds tothe scarce knowledge about its measurement.The most striking difference of this study is thatthe research results reported in this paper offerguidance to develop a better construct for mea-suring destination competitiveness from abroader perspective by including both supplyand demand sides. As Kozak (2004a) has al-ready implied while undertaking a similar typeof research and with similar techniques, the useofquestionnaireseligiblefordirectcomparisonmay have valuable implications for research onthe competitive measurement of destinationperformance. For example, Turkey is per-ceived by both tourists and service providers tobe more competitive against its multiple rivalson cultural and natural attractions, quality oftourist services and so on. Although only twodestinationsseem to be in thepool for compari-son, the same method is also potentially rele-vant to work effectively for more than two des-tinations when different customer groups whohave been into different destinations are ap-proached. As one of the contribution of thisstudy, such a common technique may begin toappear in thetourismcompetitivenessresearch.

The paper ends by pointing to some limita-tions of this research and suggesting avenuesfor further research. First, there is a risk that thefeedback obtained from actual tourists duringtheendof theirvacations in thesampledestina-tion may have biased the research findings.Next, although the sample size is large, thecurrent study is limited by its focus on onlyforeign tourists as outsiders visiting sun andsea types of resorts in the summer time andlocal service providers as insiders working/operating in such places. Therefore, it wouldbe desirable to replicate a similar study in dif-ferent settings and in different periods of theyear to come up with broader and more validimplications. Finally, survey instruments re-garding back-translation procedure should beapplied in order to specify a better sampling de-sign for culturally-heterogeneous internationalvisitors. Future research should also search fora possible application of alternative techniquesto measure the competitive position of multipledestinations using the same model or instru-ment.

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SUBMITTED: March 3, 2006FINAL REVISION SUBMITTED:

July 5, 2006ACCEPTED: August 10, 2006

REFEREED ANONYMOUSLY

doi:10.1300/J073v22n02_05


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Documents

Advancing Destination Competitiveness Research