The Competitiveness of Travel and Tourism Industry of Sub-Saharan African Countries in the World Market

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate competitiveness of Travel and Tourism industry of Sub-Saharan African countries in the world market. The study used Normalized Revealed Comparative Advantage (NRCA) and Relative Trade Advantage (RTA) indexes as a measure of competitiveness based on secondary data from ITC trade database covering between 2000 and 2019. The findings of the study revealed that SSA countries like Mauritius, South Africa, Seychelles and Namibia have competitive T&T industry consistently in the years between 2000 and 2019. However, SSA countries such as Botswana, Tanzania, Senegal, Kenya and Rwanda have competitiveness vary by years. Moreover, South Africa has highest comparative advantage followed by Tanzania and Mauritius. The study provided valuable information to industry leaders, policy makers, business owners and international organizations such as UN and UNESCO to design appropriate strategies and systems aiming to sustain and improve travel and tourism industry competitiveness in SSA countries. It is the first study in applying NRCA and RTA indexes to investigate the competitiveness of T&T Industry in SSA countries. Keywords: Competitiveness; export; import; performance; tourism; travel

Exploring the Nexus between Employment and Economic Contribution: A Study of the Travel and Tourism Industry in the Context of COVID-19

“…Most tourism studies report these indicators at a global level when assessing the importance of tourism to the economy, i.e., how tourism contributes to the world's GDP or employment (Vernekar 2015). At present, it is often connected with the level related to COVID-19 (e.g., Bogale et al 2020;Islam and Fatema 2020;Duro et al 2021;Cardenete et al 2022;Pham and Nugroho 2022;Akamavi et al 2023;de Fátima Brilhante and Rocha 2023). If the studies are focused on a specific country or region, these indicators are also mentioned (e.g., Sultana 2016;Manzoor et al 2019;Mariolis et al 2021;Moreno-Luna et al 2021;Peterson and DiPietro 2021;Sun et al 2021;Škare et al 2021;Tandrayen-Ragoobur et al 2022;Ramlall 2024).…”

“…Nowadays, there are already significantly more studies on this topic. Existing studies usually deal with impacts in a particular country, e.g., Greece (Mariolis et al 2021), Spain (Moreno-Luna et al 2021, Portugal (de Fátima Brilhante and Rocha 2023), Australia (Pham et al 2021;Munawar et al 2021;Solarin et al 2024), Ethiopia (Bogale et al 2020), Tanzania (Henseler et al 2022), Mauritius (Tandrayen-Ragoobur et al 2022), Sri Lanka (Wickramasinghe and Naranpanawa 2023), Guangdong Province, China (Wu et al 2022, Macao (Lim and To 2022); or in a particular region, e.g., Latin America and the Caribbean (Mulder 2020), Indonesia (Sun et al 2021;Pham and Nugroho 2022), Germany and Spain (Rodousakis and Soklis 2022), Spanish provinces (Duro et al 2021), Andalusia (Cardenete et al 2022), Europe (Pasieka et al 2022), European regions (Curtale et al 2023), the Central and Eastern European region (Nagaj and Žuromskait ė 2021), Europe, the USA, and China (Islam and Fatema 2020), the Chengdu-Chongqing region in China (Ding et al 2024).…”

Tourism Competitiveness in Eastern Africa: RCA and TTCI

“…Regarding competitiveness in the travel and tourism sector, relatively few analyses have been carried out with RCA or similar measures [51,52], especially for the African continent. Some of the most recent empirical studies about Africa and Asia are [53][54][55][56][57].…”

An assessment of tourism competitiveness: A comparative analysis of Georgia and neighboring countries

“…Significantly, there is a scarcity of research investigating the interplay of Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index pillars using methodologies such as ANOVA, interquartile range analysis, and expert interviews. However, some studies do explore the competitiveness of specific tourism destinations or countries, while others analyze the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index using different approaches (Croes, Niekerk, 2017;Saayman, Rossouw, 2018;Niekerk, Saayman, 2018;Balakrishnan, Chua, 2019;Haung, Wang, 2019;Costa, Teixeira, 2021). Given the comprehensive set of indicators revealed in the literature and the prominence of the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, these indicators are the foundation for our study on the competitiveness of Georgia's tourism industry.…”