The Possibilities for the identification and evaluation of tourism sector competitiveness factors

LTTurizmo sektoriaus konkurencingumo vertinimas - viena iš aktualiausių turizmo ekonomikos problemų. Efektyviai išnaudojamas konkurencinis potencialas laikytinas lemiamu turizmo vietovės sėkmės veiksniu. Konkurencingumo vertinimas - itin sudėtingas procesas, nes jis įtraukia įvairius elementus, kurių reikšmes ne visada įmanoma įvertinti. Net pirminis proceso etapas - konkurencingumo elementų identifikavimas - gali būti problematiškas, kadangi egzistuoja nemažai koncepcinių neatitikimų pačioje konkurencingumo sampratoje. Tyrimo tikslas - išanalizuoti turizmo sektoriaus konkurencingumo veiksnius bei jų vertinimo galimybes taikant sisteminį požiūrį ir atnaujintą, šiuolaikinės turizmo rinkos poreikiams adaptuotą konkurencingumo monitoriaus metodą. Atlikta analizė parodė, kad daugiapakopė konkurencingumo prigimtis sąlygoja turizmo vietovių konkurencingumo vertinimo sunkumus, susijusius su konkurencingumo monitoriaus struktūros ir ryšių tarp vertinamų elementų nustatymu. Todėl konkurencingumo veiksnių vertinimas pateiktas kaip sisteminis pasirinktų indikatorių analizės procesas. Formuojant konkurencingumo veiksnių vertinimo sistemą buvo įtraukti tiesiogiai ir netiesiogiai su turizmu susiję veiksniai ir juos įvertinti turintys galimybę rodikliai. Turizmo sektoriaus konkurencingumo veiksnių analizė, jų poveikio vertinimas yra pirmas žingsnis į efektyvios turizmo plėtros strategijos kūrimą. Atliktas tyrimas leidžia daryti išvadą, kad turizmo sektoriaus konkurencingumas gerokai prisideda prie ekonomikos plėtotės.Reikšminiai žodžiai: Konkurencingumo veiksniai; Turizmo sektoriaus; Konkurencingumas; Turizmo sektoriaus konkurencingumo; Vertinimas; Konkurencingumo monitorius.; Competitiveness factors; Tourism sector; Competitiveness; Evaluation of tourism sector; Competitiveness monitor.

ENTourism is one of the most important and most rapidly growing economy sectors, which faces the challenges and possibilities of globalization. Historically, tourism markets have been national and regional, that is, isolated from one another. However, in the last decades the boundaries between national businesses tend to disappear. General trend of growing income enables individuals and families to travel longer distances. An increase in the quality of tourist products and services, innovations in the field of transport and communications, ingenious measures of tourism marketing, and other factors also significantly contribute to the development of global tourism. The competitiveness of tourist destinations becomes increasingly important to countries that intend to control a large share of rapidly growing tourism market. That is particularly relevant to the tourism-dependant countries, which heavily rely on the situation in tourism and travel industry. The competitiveness of tourism sector encloses many factors, such as natural environment (geographic location, climate, scenery, etc.), artificial environment (tourism infrastructure, transport, supply of leisure and entertainment services, retail stores, hotel network), and globalization of markets. The identification and evaluation of tourism competitiveness factors is a pretty common research problem of many scientific studies and articles dedicated to tourism economics. As tourism markets grow, and the concept of tourism evolves (holiday tourism, tourism of the physically disabled, ecological tourism, conference tourism, political tourism, etc.), the aforementioned research problems become more significant.The object of this study is the identification and evaluation of tourism competitiveness factors. The aim of this study: to identify and evaluate the factors of tourism competitiveness with the use of a systematic approach and renewed version of Competitiveness Monitor (CM) method, adapted for the analysis of modern needs of tourism market. The following scientific research methods were applied in the study: the systematical and logical analysis of scientific literature, and synthesis. The study carried out by the authors of this article proposes that the competitiveness of tourism sector significantly adds to the economic development. Some countries are not rich in natural resources or highly developed industry sectors. Such countries tend to concentrate their efforts on the development of tourism industry and services. Various competitiveness factors of tourism sector are analyzed in scientific literature. They are related to market conditions, the level of social development, environmental policy, the base of human resources, the quality of infrastructure, technological advancement, and other fields of development. The degree of development strongly correlates with competitiveness of tourist destinations. Competitive tourist destinations offer a wider range of tourist products; attract potential visitors with the help of their exceptional image (for instance, natural scenery, clean lakes, advanced environmental policy are a perfect niche for ecological tourism and environment-friendly country image); and provide services of a particularly high quality. [From the publication]