Research Note: Quality of Government and Tourism Destination Competitiveness

Abstract

This paper examines the impacts of the quality of government on international tourism competitiveness. Quality of government is conceptualized in terms of an absence of corruption, a well-established rule of law and bureaucratic efficiency. Based on the cross-country analysis of the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (World Economic Forum, 2013), the main finding of the study demonstrates that quality of government is positively associated with tourism competitiveness and that this positive effect remains robust across a number of control variables and estimation techniques. The results suggest that public policy for building a successful tourism industry should be nested in the broader project of enhancing the quality of government.

Asymmetric Impact of Institutional Quality on Tourism Inflows Among Selected Asian Pacific Countries

“…A time-series analysis conducted on Malaysian tourism by Tang [23] showed that international tourists are concerned about the political stability, law enforcement, government effectiveness, and regulations of the country [24]. Efficient governance and institutions stimulate economic growth and encourage tourism and suggest further that improvement in institutional performance stimulates economic growth and signals the level of security, which may increase tourism demand [6,25,26]. In addition, better control of corruption and stability is highly likely to attract more tourism demand [27][28][29].…”

Exploring the links between tourism and quality of institutions

“…The relationship between tourism and quality of the institutions of the societies where it is developed has, hitherto, been little studied. In addition, this limited research explores such relationships only partially or indirectly (Das and Di Renzo, 2010;Brau et al, 2011;Lee, 2015;Poprawe, 2015). The specific links that can be established between the two issues remain uncertain.…”

“…The specific links that can be established between the two issues remain uncertain. Lee (2015) employs a cross-country regression analysis of 117 countries and finds that quality of government is positively associated with international tourism competitiveness (Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index). Furthermore, this study concluded that the positive effect of quality of government is independent from the effect of democracy.…”

“…On the other hand, Poprawe (2015) and Lee (2015) introduced international openness as a control variable in its analysis of the relations between tourism and institutional quality (Poprawe, 2015 uses the Index for trade openness and Lee, 2015 the Index of globalization). Both studies conclude that there is a positive and significant relationship between tourism and openness.…”

“…Furthermore, the scarce research on the subject explores these relationships partially or indirectly. Only a specific aspect of institutional quality has been considered (Das andDi Renzo, 2010 andPoprawe, 2015 study corruption) or only a specific dimension of tourism has been examined (Lee, 2015 analyzes tourism competitiveness). Finally, Brau et al (2011) and Altin et al (2017) study the relationships between tourism and institutional quality in only an indirect way.…”