Relations Between Tourism Spending and Global Competitiveness – an Empirical Study in Developed OECD Countries

Global trends indicate a systematic increase in the importance of tourism. From an economic point of view, spending plays an essential role in the spectrum of tourism services indicators. Simultaneously, the competitiveness of economies is a key economic indicator; thus, research in this area is considered beneficial. This study's objective was to assess the significance of the structure of clients' spending on tourism in the context of the global competitiveness of OECD countries, with the primary focus on the effect of individual types of tourism spending on competitiveness. Several analytical procedures were used in the processing, such as descriptive analysis, relationship analysis, regression analysis, and cluster analysis. Secondary data were included in the analyses, and these data represented six variables determining tourism spending obtained from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) database: i - Business Tourism Spending (BTS), ii - Domestic Tourism Spending (DTS), iii - Internal T&T Consumption (ITTC), iv - Leisure Tourism Spending (LTS), v - Outbound Travel & Tourism Expenditure (OTTE), vi - Visitor Exports (Foreign spending) (VEFS); and one variable determining competitiveness: the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which was obtained from reports published by the World Economic Forum (WEF). These data were collected for all OECD countries from 2010 to 2018. The results of the regression analysis clearly confirmed the effect of tourism spending on competitiveness in OECD countries. The most significant effects were found in BTS and OTTE, and the least significant impact was identified in VEFS. The results provide valuable information for strategic and development plan makers and institutions responsible for improving the business environment in tourism. The study and its results also offer space for developing national and international benchmarking indicators in this area.