South Asian Journal of Tourism and Heritage (2009), Vol. 2, No.

Sustainable Tourism: A Case of Destination Competitiveness

in South Asia
VIJU MATHEW*
*

Viju Mathew, Ph.D., Asst. Professor, MOHE, College of Applied Science Salalah, Salalah, Sultanate of
Oman.

ABSTRACT
Sustainability is a multidimensional concept that encompasses not just environmental protection but also
extends to economic development and social equity (Gladwin, et al., 1995). The tourism system is a complex
social system and considered as a smokeless industry which operates within the micro and macro
environments considering all factors of competitiveness and sustainability. Tourism Industry Forecast
indicates that the tourism industry is growing at a faster rate with large number of tourist flow over the world.
In case of South Asian countries the experience and opportunities can be elaborated in various areas of travel
and tourism. Inspite, of having massive infrastructure, support facilities and travel and tour destination with
great value chain has not yet received great attention from the global tourist community and have not yet in
the global ranking of highest tourist destination arrivals. This paper tries to find various components of
sustainable tourism in case of destination competitiveness with special reference to South Asia. The paper
will also suggest the strategies and competitiveness development method recognizing pattern of development,
need to incorporate input, recognizing destination competitiveness as an intermediate goal towards growth.

KEYWORDS: Sustainable tourism, Tourism destination, Destination competitiveness,

Destination development, South Asia
INTRODUCTION
Destination Competitiveness - in case of South Asia
Developing competitiveness in terms of destination is regarded as the an amalgam of
individual products and experience opportunities that combine to form a total experience of the
area visited (Murphy, Pritchard & Smith, 2000). In case of South Asia, the experience and
opportunities can be elaborated in various areas of travel and tourism. The focus on the tourism
sector has been regarded as the fastest growing generating employment directly and indirectly
with the growth in other related industries.
Destination Competitiveness Gaps and Challenges
Some developing economies despite of having massive infrastructure, support facilities and
travel and tour destination with great value chain has not yet received great attention from the
global tourist community and have not yet in the global ranking of highest tourist destination
arrivals. In this phase, tourism strategic planning processes have to develop which will facilitated
at the local, states, cities metro and region and implement resulting the attraction to the global
tourist. The implementation of these plans under scheduled planned process provided a sound
reference for future initiatives for the industry. Tourism industry in South Asia has been taken into
consideration in various research and studies but still lacks the key situational factors appear to be
prevalent in many destinations competitiveness. Some of the key strategic gaps and challenges for
sustainable destination competitiveness have been highlighted below:
Communication gap between the communities, states and parties affected the overall growth
of the tourism. Communication among the states and international agencies and tourist has
been expensive and time consuming in early nineties which has generated wide gap among
different partners involved in the tourism sector. With the ICT revolution in the region, the
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communication within and outside the countries has enable the population to explore larger
opportunities.
Community participation during the early stages is negligible. The view of understanding
tourism as the major source of employment, growth and development has not been accepted.
The community participation in terms of travel and tour was also apparent. Surrounding
communities within the regions were largely regarded as competition and as a threat. The
narrow and short strategies have been liked to explore opportunity. Lack of strategies and
actions planned at national level become the constraint to tap the opportunities.
Lack of continuous mentoring and support to the people involved in the tourism sector has
discouraged the new entrants. The initiatives to develop cities, regions and states are often
short at both state and national level planning. The short of insufficient financial support,
external guidance, basic infrastructure, licensing, support etc has restricted the industry to
grow.
Lack of coordinated effort towards the development of tourism and strategy for improving the
competitiveness and attraction, specifically in case of destinations in South Asia. In this
regard, the sector needs lack of policy, planning and marketing which can be put forward for
improving the tourism in South Asian countries.
Lack of entrepreneurial initiative guided by the government or non government institution in
the tourism sector has become the constraints for identifying opportunities, formulate business
plan, take calculative risk, develop market, arrange finance, innovation etc.

Sustainable destination competitiveness

Tourism industry is considered as one of the fastest growing industry in the world. Tourism
Industry is extremely sensitive industry which is affected by various environmental factors
and incorporates distinct features of information society not only of one country but across the
world. Sustainability concept added to the destination competitiveness has been new to the
world. The destination is known for the advantages which attract the tourist to visit and this
attraction will develop creation of competitiveness. Creating competitiveness will enhance the
consumer value for the money and blend of satisfying needs of the tourist. Only those
organization and institution that find new ways to create value will prosper in the future. The
global tourism industry is subjected to a range of factors that are increasing complexity and
influencing the economic options available to the institution. These factors may vary from
destination to destination representing different competitiveness for that particular destination
or for the economies. According to Christie (2002) the economies can adopt self-reinforcing
processes of economic, political and social development and in particular: improve
governance and reduce conflict; invest in people; increase competitiveness and diversify;
reduce aid dependence and build partnerships.
These factors are interrelated with each another and have strong influential effect but capable
of having an effect on the industry independently. Creating competitiveness in the tourism is
very challenging in terms of time. Strategies has to be formulated, implemented effectively
resulting the direct influence over the factor which act as primary and support drivers for
creating competitiveness. These drivers are more likely to be categorized but reflect the
overall effect on the outcome. Some of these are market-induced and may not influence
directly and may not create long term consequence.

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85

Model for Sustainability destination competitiveness

Support activities for Sustainable destination competitiveness
Human resources development, Administration supports, Infrastructure, physical
support, policies, capacity, personal safety & security, culture, climate, events, linkage,
channels, network, community involvement, benchmarking, environment development

Key success drivers for sustainability

Inputs
- Business model
- Competencies
- Cooperation
- Entrepreneurs
- Investments
- Leadership
- Objectives
- Other
- People
- Policy
- Portfolio
- Resources
- Strategies

Sustainable
Process
- Build image
- Competency
- Design
- Development
- Product
development
- Quality
management
- Sell
- Service delivery

Destination
Marketing
- Promotion
- Attraction
- Sales
- Events
- Target marketing
- Strategic Positioning
- Innovation
- Others

Leverages/ operation
- Brand Management
- Core competencies
- CRM
- Expansion
- Exploring
opportunities
- Positioning
- Strength & weakness

Sustainable Services
- Services experiences
- Hospitality
-Accommodation
- Entertainment
- Society focus

Fig 1: Modified Model for Sustainable destination competitiveness (Tourism Industry)

Source: Mathew V (2009)
Sustainability destination competitiveness - Model
Sustainability destination competitiveness framework (refer fig. 1) enables to understand
various influential factors which affect the overall activities creating a long term effect. The figure
1 illustrates sustainability destination competitiveness activities categorized into key success
drivers and support activities performed by the industry. Key success drivers include Inputs,
sustainable process, leverage/ operation, destination marketing and sustainable services which will
create major pathway for the sustainable competitiveness. Support activities include human
resource development (human resources is a central factor in achieving competitiveness and
important for consumer loyalty Bueno, 1999), Infrastructure (accessibility of the destination Dwyer 2001), physical support, policies (Crouch et al 2000), capacity, personal safety & security,
culture, climate, events, linkage, channels, network, community involvement, benchmarking,

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environment development (Mihalic, T. 2000) and other which directly support the key drivers to
achieve the competitiveness and are crucial for many forms of tourism and visitor satisfaction
(Buckley, 1994). Support activities also affect both the volume and pattern of tourism flows
throughout the world (Dwyer, 2001). Supporting factor provide necessary foundation for a strong
tourism sector (Crouch and Ritchie, 1995). The drivers and the support activities are combined
together which directly affect the process and service. To sustain the activities for the long term
should have strong support activity driving the key success factor. McKercher (1998) observes
that more proximate destinations exhibit a competitive advantage over destinations that offer a
similar product, but are more distant. Dwyer (2001) emphasized that the competitiveness maintain
and increase the real income reflecting in the standard of living of the country. The
competitiveness of an economy directly linked with the income, standard of living, development
and market condition. The model that has been developed (Fig. 1) to bring together the main
elements of sustainable destination competitiveness as the main indicator. The drivers of
sustainable destination competitiveness are explained below:
Inputs
Examine all activities and the items which act as inputs necessary for initiating the process
within the system. Crouch et al (2000) explained that destination input model including strategies,
vision provides a direction for development. Destination can enhance its competitiveness through
specialization, innovation, investment, productivity (Crouch et al 2000). Inputs include Business
plan, Competencies, Cooperation, Entrepreneurs, Investments (Hassan, 2000), Leadership
(Ritchie, 1999) and Heath, 2000) , objectives, vision people (Bueno, 1999), policy (Crouch et al
2000), portfolio, resources, strategies (Heath, 2000).
Sustainable Process
The process is considered as the backbone of all which act as strong support to conduct all other
activities. Process acts as a powerful attracting force for the prospective visitor (Prentice, 1993,
Murphy et al 2000). These attractors are more diversified and greater its attractiveness and
therefore competitiveness will be (Crouch et al, 2000). It focuses on broadening competencies in
new arrangements which will enable to become more consistent by the optimization of resources.
Leverages/ Operations
Activities allow focusing on its internal strengths and becoming more receptive by entering into
strategic partnerships with suppliers with competencies in new expansion and operations. The
levers will directly address the main issue to solve the problems which will create core
competencies.
Destination Marketing
Destination Marketing is considered as the most important in the competitive world these days.
It focuses on creating awareness, promoting product and services, communication, creating brand
image, developing network channels through various mean of promotion and marketing tools.
Destination marketing (Gilbert, 1990) includes promotion, attraction, sales, events, target
marketing (Crouch and Ritchie 1993), strategic positioning (Kotler, 1997), innovation. Marketing
strategies help highlighting the service differentiate its products from the competition. It focuses
on the destination competitive advantage and develops and positions the destination in the
customers mind.
Sustainable Service
These are the activities that a company offers to enhance and sustain products and its
competitive value. Murphy et al (2000) explained that the lack of appropriate service which
facilitate the travel like accommodation, entertainment affect tourist experiences and that the
availability is an important predictor of both destination quality and perceived trip value.
Providing value for money is increasingly regarded as one of the key challenges facing any
tourism destination as is the perception of value (Buhalis, 2000). Gilbert (1990), Poon (1993) and
Porter (1990) emphasized value-competitive advantages can be achieved through innovation of
services. Hospitality relates to attitude towards tourists (Dwyer 2001) which satisfy the tourist
from the destination creating advantage. Enhancing tourist experiences must be made to ensure
quality of service approach to visitor satisfaction (Go and Govers 2000).

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Sustainable Destination tourism: Competitiveness in case of South Asia

With regards to Asian countries as a competitive destination have various advantages which is
supporting the economy. Asian countries posses Quality of the educational system, Quality of
management schools, Intensity of local competition, Extent of market dominance, Effectiveness
of anti-monopoly policy, Extent and effect of taxation, Degree of customer orientation, Buyer
sophistication, Cooperation in labor-employer relations, Pay and productivity, Reliance on
professional management, Brain drain, Financial market sophistication, Financing through local
equity market, Ease of access to loans, Venture capital availability, Strength of investor
protection, Regulation of securities exchanges, Legal rights, Availability of latest technologies,
Firm-level technology absorption, Laws relating to ICT, FDI and technology transfer, Quality of
railroad infrastructure, Local availability of research and training services, Extent of staff training,
Rigidity of employment, Domestic market size, Foreign market size, Local supplier quantity, State
of cluster development, Value chain breadth, Control of international distribution, Production
process sophistication, Extent of marketing, Willingness to delegate authority, Capacity for
innovation, Quality of scientific research institutions, Company spending on R&D, Universityindustry research collaboration, Availability of scientists and engineers and others (World
Economic Forum, Global Competitiveness Index 2008-2009).
Being large in population like India, China posses huge potential of tourist internally which
bring the flow of money internally? Also the large financial system, infrastructure (Information,
communication, technology and transportation) and labor skills at price effective than west which
have a potential attract the larger portion of global tourist. To sustain the flow of tourism capturing
the competitiveness in terms of destination can be achieved in a systematic implementation flow
through the success drivers. Marketing is one of the areas which have to be looked upon urgently
and seriously with the policy taken into consideration. Exploring the opportunity with internal
strength which the country posses for e.g.: advance in health care, improvement in business
tourism, rural tourism, exploring adventure tourism etc. Tourism sector in South Asia can further
benefit from the international tourism business, it has to think strategically and gear up internally
to develop appropriate physical, human resource, and other organizational infrastructure in an
integrated manner, which can meet the varied needs of international tourists.
Sustaining the destination competitiveness, the model (refer fig. 1) will develop and improve the
position of tourism industry with special reference to South Asia. To explore the tourism sector,
implementation of model (refer fig. 1) in the international tourism business in terms of destination
competitiveness is to be improved. The constructed model is underpinned by a number of areas
related factors to destination competitiveness. Tourism destination competitiveness refers to the
destination attractors and deterrents (Ritchie and Crouch, 1993). Emphasizes on careful and well
executed program can serve to improve the tourism competitiveness of a destination. In particular,
marketing efforts have the potential to enhance the perceived appeal (e.g. image) of a destination,
whilst managerial initiatives can strengthen the competitive position of a destination.
Ways for Tourism competitiveness
1. Recognizing pattern of development through tourism researchers (Dwyer and Kim 2003;
Enright and Newton 2005) contributing to competitiveness enhancement and developing
2. Destination Efficiency, which draws on the integrity of experience, relating to the ability of
the destination to provide an appropriate experience
3. Well executed program of destination management to improve the tourism competitiveness of
a destination.
4. Use of information systems for decision making, providing the ability to better manage the
performance of destination's product
5. Developing skills and conditions which can increase the quantity and quality of the output of
tourism experiences
6. Recognizing destination competitiveness as an intermediate goal towards national economic
prosperity (Dywer and Kim 2003).
7. Understanding destinations inherent potential and its impediments into sharper focus
(Faulkner and Tideswell 2002) and based on that developing appropriate strategies

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8.

Industry collaboration cooperation and decision making for a problem domain about the
future of (Gray 1985)
9. Involving a diverse range of stakeholders in tourism destination development and planning
(Edgells 1990)
10. Indepth tourism researchers (Ritchie 1993; Helling 1998)
11. Community representation for sustainable and strategic tourism planning for tourism
destinations (Cooper 2002)
12. Developing and implementing distinctive strategies to deliver a sustainable destination
(Cooper 2002).
13. Analyzing tourism destination competitiveness as the need to incorporate input into
competitiveness research (Dwyer, Livaic and Mellor 2003)
14. Finding direct consumer oriented indirect measures (Hudson, Ritchie and Timur 2004).
CONCLUSION
Study of tourism destination competitiveness continues to gain interest amongst tourism
researchers (Evans, Fox and Johnson 1995; Faulkner, Oppermann, and Fredline 1999). The
research is significant of understanding competitiveness variables to destinations in case of South
Asian countries. With the late recognition the tourism sector in some of the developing countries
in south Asia has received attention and various institutions have taken initiative to explore the
possibility of tourism. The ability of infrastructure and other components together to be
maintained and introduced to sustain the destinations appeal and support the economic growth.
Sustainability destination competitiveness framework enables to understand various influential
factors which affect the overall activities creating a long term effect. The competitiveness of an
economy directly linked with the income, standard of living, development and market condition.
The model (Fig. 1) to bring together the main elements of sustainable destination competitiveness
as the main indicator. The drivers and strategies for sustainable destination competitiveness are
framed finding direct consumer oriented measures for sustainable developing Asia as tourist
destination in global competition and strong distinct image for the future of tourism.
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