From potential to ability to compete: Towards a performance-based tourism competitiveness index

The purpose of this study is to design a ranking system for tourist destinations. The ranking system will be grounded in the competitiveness theory. The main tenet of the study reveals that the nexus inputs-outputs as entertained by several indices are not automatic. The study claims that a meaningful measurement of tourism competitiveness is performance. The study designs a tourism competitiveness index (TCI) derived from satisfaction, productivity and quality of life. The ranking in this study shows inconsistent results when compared to the World Economic Forum (WEF) tourism ranking. That is, the WEF tourism ranking revealed that countries at the top of the ranking are not necessarily strong in real tourism receipts per capita and quality of life; while the current study indicated that they actually are strong in those areas. The study further found that these two attributes (i.e. real receipts per capita and value added) strongly correlate with quality of life stressing the attributes of receipts per capita, value added and quality of life and their correlation as important elements in the descriptive theory building of tourism competitiveness.