Developing a Competitive and Sustainable Destination of the Future: Clusters and Predictors of Successful National-Level Destination Governance across Destination Life-Cycle

Ivan Paunović,Marc Dressler,Sanja Popović Pantić,Sanja Popović Pantić,Tatjana Mamula Nikolić

doi:10.3390/su12104066

Abstract

This study advances the research and methodological approach to measuring and understanding national-level destination competitiveness, sustainability and governance, by creating a model that could be of use for both developing and developed destinations. The study gives a detailed overview of the research field of measuring destination competitiveness and sustainability. It also identifies major predictors of destination competitiveness and sustainability and thereby presents destination researchers and practitioners with a useful list of priority areas, both from a global perspective and from the perspective of other similar destinations. Finally, the study identifies two major types of destination governance with implications for research, policy and practice across the destination life-cycle. The research deals with the analysis of the secondary data from the World Economic Forum Travel and Tourism Index (WEF T&T). Major types of destination governance and predictors of belonging to either one of the types, as well as inside cluster predictors have been extracted through a two-step cluster analysis. The results support the notion that a meaningful model of national-level destination governance needs to take into account different development levels of different destinations. The main limitation of the study is its typology creation approach, as it inevitably leads to simplifications.

Highlights

A destination’s success depends on its competitiveness in the global market, and on the need to sustain its competitive position and be resilient in the face of unforeseen events as a prerequisite of long-range success [1,2]
This exploratory study seeks to fill this gap by creating a taxonomy model that could provide more flexibility in understanding the types of challenges faced by different destinations, and at the same time acknowledging that a global model of destination excellence needs to take into account a multitude of approaches to destination planning and development
The article started by giving an overview of the literature on destination competitiveness, the predictors of destination competitiveness and sustainability and of destination planning, development and governance

Summary

Introduction

A destination’s success depends on its competitiveness in the global market, and on the need to sustain its competitive position and be resilient in the face of unforeseen events as a prerequisite of long-range success [1,2]. There is a gap in the literature on the most significant factors of destination performance that could be of use for both policy and organizations [6] This exploratory study seeks to fill this gap by creating a taxonomy model that could provide more flexibility in understanding the types of challenges faced by different destinations, and at the same time acknowledging that a global model of destination excellence needs to take into account a multitude of approaches to destination planning and development. The importance of specific predictors (both in global terms and in terms of a narrower competitive set) is important for setting the agenda for discussions on the future destination planning and governance, and aligning the destination-level goals with the changes in the competitive set and in the global competitive landscape

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion