Research on tourism industry competitiveness based on structural equation model

Abstract

As tourism industry develops rapidly and accounts for more and more in national economy, people pay more and more attention to its position. This paper, starting at the definition of tourism industry competitiveness, discusses constructing of structural equation model in tourism competitiveness evaluation. Introduction Because tourism industry drives related industries greatly, developing tourism industry is of great significance to promote tertiary industry developing rapidly, improve strategic restructuring of the economy, expand domestic demands, promote employment, and increase resident income, boost international exchange and cooperation and others. Currently, tourism industry has already become one of the pillar industries for developing most of regional economies. Thus, promoting competitiveness of regional tourism industry becomes one strategy for regional economy development, while it is an essential link to evaluate competitiveness of regional tourism industry for improving its competitiveness [1]. It is possible to understand the advantages and shortages of regional tourism development by scientifically evaluating the competitiveness of regional tourism industry. This is to facilitate regional tourism management department to present detailed strategies for developing regional tourism industry based on its advantages and shortages [2-3]. Definition of tourism industry competitiveness Tourism industry departments are divided based on consumers’ purchase purpose. The common property of tourism industries is that their services and products aim at consumers at the same level to be consumption-oriented tourism industry. It has broad extension with undefined boundary. Generally, we can divide tourism industry into two departments of basic industry and specific industry. Namely, the basic industry refers to department serving local residents and tourists, such as urban transport, social restaurants, postal service, water and electricity supply, ordinary entertainment venues and others [4]. For these departments, they will downsize only if there are no tourists instead of shutting down. The specific industry refers to those serving tourists particularly, including beauty spots, airplane chartering for traveling, tourist hotels and others. These departments will find it hard to survive without tourists [5]. This paper aims at the latter in its study on tourism industry competitiveness in addition to related basic industry departments. Therefore, industry competitiveness refers to the ability different regional economy bodies compete with each other to develop resources in certain industry. Tourism industry competitiveness then refers to the ability different regional economy bodies compete with each other to develop resources in tourism industry. Specifically, tourism industry competitiveness embodies tourist products, tourist industries as well as the ability to realize tourist market finally [6-8]. Tourist enterprises or industries can provide tourist products or services consumers will to accept in a way more effective than the other competitors, with their comprehensive ability to obtain satisfying economic profits[9]. This paper suggests there are two comparing international and domestic significance. Our laws and overall policies are formulated by the country, while as for formulating and managing tourism industry policies; various regions still have great flexibility and autonomy. In different regions, tourism industry structure, its organizational form as well as development environment differ, International Conference on Economics, Social Science, Arts, Education and Management Engineering (ESSAEME 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 692 moreover, economic profit entities with various regions as their carriers exist objectively, so industry competitiveness exists certainly in different regions in the country [10-12]. Figure 1 Five-Strength Competition Model The competitiveness model of Michael Porter Regional competitiveness mainly refers to regional comprehensive competitiveness to be a qualitative concept unable to be measured. It is necessary to base on certain evaluation model in studying regional competitiveness. Wherein, the most classical analytical model is Porter’s diamond model [13]. This model presents four related key element layers, with each layer representing one factor deciding regional competitive advantage, that are enterprise strategies, enterprise structure, horizontal competition, demand conditions, production factors and related supportive industries. Besides, opportunities and government factors also influence the above four element layers. The diamond system is dynamic reactive system, with each internal factor influencing and depending on each other, therefore to form different competitive system [14-15]. Figure 2 Diamond Model Figure The basic concept of structural equation model The structural equation model (SEM), targeted at the shortages of the traditional causal model and path analysis, and is presented after introducing of factor analysis into path analysis. Under the effort of other statisticians, the research model of latent variable represented by factor analysis was integrated with the traditional linear causality model represented by path analysis. The structural equation model theories have been developing gradually and applied in psychometric, econometrics,