Capturing causal configurations of tourism destination competitiveness conditions for tourism performance: Asymmetric and symmetric application

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to unravel the intertwined causal configuration of destination competitiveness conditions underlying inbound tourist arrivals and expenditures. This study employed a two necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) methods to explore the necessary and sufficient configurations of destination competitiveness conditions across 133 country cases. Specifically, the country-specific destination competitiveness antecedents were taken from the World Economic Forum's ‘Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index’. In addition, this study conducted the multiple regression analysis to confirm the robustness of the results from the fsQCA by comparing symmetric and asymmetric models.

The findings from the fsQCA highlighted that countries have different causal configurations for boosting destination competitiveness. Thus, each country should consider its specificities when determining the optimal configurations of causal conditions to respond better to low or high levels of tourism outcomes. Notably, enabling capacity such as cultural and natural heritage is a critical for the destination competitiveness in both symmetric and asymmetric approaches. This is the first attempt to explore the complex causal configurations between tourism destination competitiveness conditions and inbound tourist arrivals and expenditures using symmetric and asymmetric approaches. The insights can guide country-level tourism marketing strategies to boost inbound tourist arrivals and tourism revenue.