Nishaal Gooroochurn

Competitiveness Indicators in the Travel and Tourism Industry

The competitiveness of tourist destinations is important, especially as countries strive for a bigger market share. However, competitiveness is a complex concept, encompassing various aspects that are difficult to measure. This paper discusses an innovative approach for measuring tourism competitiveness using eight main indicators – price, openness, technology, infrastructure, human tourism, social development, environment and human resources – for over 200 countries. Weights for each theme are derived using confirmatory factor analysis in order to compute an aggregate index, and it is found that the social and technology indicators have the highest weights while the human tourism and environment indicators have the lowest. Cluster analysis is used to group destinations according to their performance level. The USA, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Australia are found to be the most competitive destinations, while Burkina Faso, Chad, Benin, Ethiopia and Cambodia are the least competitive.

Spillover effects in long-haul visitors between two regions

Gooroochurn N. and Hanley A. (2005) Spillover effects in long‐haul visitors between two regions, Regional Studies 39 , 727–739. A new body called Tourism Ireland, funded jointly by the British and Irish Governments, has been set up to promote tourism for the entire island of Ireland. This study investigates whether such an initiative is mutually beneficial for the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI). It is argued that joint promotion of the island is viable only if interregional tourism demand spillovers are generated. A spillover arises when tourists who visit the ROI also visit NI, and vice versa. The interconnectedness between the two regions’ long‐haul visitor demand was investigated empirically and it was found that spillovers are significant, albeit asymmetric. NI tourism demand rises 3.2% for every 10% increase in ROI tourism demand, while the latter increases 1.1% for every 10% increase in NI demand.

Tourism Immiserization: Fact or Fiction?

Tourism plays a major part in the development strategies of both developing and developed countries because of the alleged potential of generating foreign exchange, economic growth and welfare enhancement (Sinclair and Stabler, 1997; Sinclair, 1988). Consequently, in several countries a considerable amount of resources is allocated to further promote the tourism sector in a hope of reaping more economic benefits. However, it is still debatable whether tourism is beneficial for the tourist-receiving country or not. While empirical studies (Adams and Parmenter, 1994; Zhou et al., 1996, Baaijens et al., 1998; Blake, 2000; Blake et. al., 2003; Dwyer et al., 2003), argue that tourism expansion is beneficial to the economy, theoretical studies (Copeland, 1991; Chen and Devereux, 1999; Hazari and Nowak, 2003; Hazari et al., 2003; Nowak et al., 2003) posit that tourism expansion can be immiserizing. This paper critically reviews the theoretical and empirical literature to identify the sources via which tourism expansion can benefit or harm the economy. The issues are then empirically investigated using a CGE model for Mauritius to identify the conditions under which tourism expansion can be immiserizing.