Measuring Convergence in Tourism Competitiveness of Natural and Cultural Resources: A Case of the Balkans and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The publication The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report encompasses the latest data on the travel and tourism competitiveness. Given that this report is a leading product of the World Economic Forum platform, it serves as a strategic benchmark for future policy implementation. Natural and cultural resources are significant in explaining tourism competitiveness. The empirical study in this paper is based on the two-step process of measuring convergence of tourism competitiveness. The first step illustrates the values of competitiveness of natural and cultural resources for two groups of European countries: the Balkans and Eastern Europe and five high-ranking European countries in the field of cultural tourism. The second part applies the entropy method for measuring convergence of competitiveness of this group of countries. For analyzing tourism competitiveness in these two groups of countries, ten indicators were used: five for natural resources and five for cultural resources. The results show that natural and cultural resources are the critical drivers of competitiveness and represent the determinants of tourism performance in the future.

Policy Instruments for the Development of Rural Tourism in the Least Developed Areas of Serbia: The Example of the Municipality of Medveđa

“…The development of tourism is possible, among other things, thanks to the untouched nature, which is suitable for the development of agriculture and organic production and the marketing of these products through tourism. According to the representatives of the Municipality of Medveđa, natural resources can be used for the development of animal husbandry, wood industry and mines (Pantović et al, 2022). In the vicinity of the Sijarinska Banja, there is Caričin Grad, which, due to its historical importance and archaeological sites, represents a tourist potential, as stated by the representative of the Municipality of Medveđa.…”

A Comparative Statistical Analysis of Foreign Visitors' Volume and Overnights Spent at the Balkan Locale

“…The tourists seem to prefer attractions and destinations which comprise heritage elements, religion, brutal wars and history, myths to search for and myths to live for, folklore events, common lifestyle, music and other marvels both man-made or nature-made. Vasanicova and Kosikova (2019) as cited in Pantović et al (2022) remark that a heritage-related destination will attract more visitors due to tourists' affinity to the more heritage-related areas that exist in a place. The case of more visitors arriving at such heritage attractions has also been observed by Marković et al (2021).…”

“…Policies are made to provide a marketing vehicle that through the convergence (the output of the policies that have been applied) when visitors from different markets arrive at a destination we can conclude that the policies work (Pantović et al, 2022). Thus, convergence is a measuring medium for the degree of effectiveness of marketing (Pantović et al, 2022). The citizens' position in social and economic related backgrounds comes well behind Europe.…”

A Model for Determining Premium Rates in Indexbased Crop Insurance

“…soon as the impact of the weather event on the index is assessed(Carter et al, 2017;Pantović et al, 2022). Therefore, index-based insurance ensures that financial resources for mitigating losses are available immediately upon the occurrence of a natural disaster, precisely when they are most needed by the affected farmers.…”