Subnational tourism competitiveness performance. The Canary Islands vs. the German Länder.

IntroductionThe local economy in the Canary Islands relies heavily on tourism, which has made significant contributions to economic growth in the area for decades. However, nowadays a number of factors are affecting tourism in the islands, thus impacting directly on the tourism competitiveness of the archipelago. The first factor is that the Canary Islands are a mature tourism destination, and since 2000, long before the global economic crisis began in 2007, there has been a stagnation in inbound tourism and expenditure. The second factor is that there has been an increase in the number of emerging destinations worldwide, which has made the global tourism market increasingly competitive. These emerging destinations put pressure on mature destinations, such as the Canary Islands, forcing them to rejuvenate and improve quality in order to remain competitive (Kresic and Prebezac, 2011). According to Cracolici and Nijkamp (2009), new, isolated or previously unknown destinations have become the providers of unique and special experiences. Lastly, the third factor has affected tourism is the increase in the global mobility of tourists; what this means in terms of competitiveness is that new competitors are emerging at a global level, and not just at the local level (Croes, 2011).What is apparent from this is that it is important to take into account two factors when studying tourism competitiveness: changes in tourist behaviour and the emergence of new destinations. Within the literature on tourism, several authors have recognised that in the current context tourists have new and different needs and behaviours, and therefore, new demands are being placed on tourism. The implications of this are that destinations are being forced to adapt in order to meet these new demands (Cracolici and Nijkamp, 2009).Logically, these changes affect the competitive position of destinations and, as such, measuring competitiveness becomes a crucial task to ensure the short-term and long-term success of a destination. However, measuring competitiveness is far from a simple task; on one hand, the literature contains many different models and indicators for tourism competitiveness, and on the other hand, competitiveness is a relative concept that either i) compares a destination over time, ii) compares several tourism destinations to one another, or iii) compares a destination with its source markets. In this paper, each of these three methodologies shall be combined in order to a) perform a comparative analysis of the tourism competitiveness of the selected destinations in relation to particular source markets, and b) study their evolution and to compare their competitiveness over time. What is unique about the analysis performed, which compares the tourism competitiveness of the main islands of the archipelago - Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma - from the perspective of the different German federal states, is that both the markets and destinations that have been used are not countries, but rather subnational entities. For the purpose of this analysis, up-to-date information was sourced from the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics (ISTAC).Tourism research and tourism statistics have been traditionally biased towards the national level, which happens, in part, because the international organisation in charge of setting standards on tourism statistics - the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) - has to a certain extent neglected subnational statistics. Nevertheless, tourism activities tend to be very concentrated in certain regions and destinations of each country, and each of these places have their own resources and performance. The relevance of the subnational information and analysis has recently been highlighted by the International Network on Regional Economics, Mobility and Tourism (INRouTe) in a joint methodological publication containing a framework for the development of the measurement and analysis of tourism in a subnational level (UNWTO and INRouTe, 2013). …