Assessing the competitiveness of the tourism and recreation industry in a region: scientific approaches

Abstract

The article addresses the widespread presence of the tourism and recreation industry as one of the priority objectives of the Ukrainian regions’ development strategies at the lack of tools to assess its competitiveness. It dwells on the issues of methodology and techniques to assess the competitiveness of the tourism and recreation industry in a region. The features of the concept of competitiveness with regard to the tourism and recreation industry and its regional systems are examined. The reasonability of integrating the concepts of sectoral and regional competitiveness at its assessment at the regional level is emphasized, and the suggested interpretations of these concepts are analyzed. The article analyzes the studies related to the assessment of the competitiveness of the tourism and recreation industries of the countries and regions worldwide, namely, the methodological grounds and techniques for calculating the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI). The position of Ukraine in the rankings of the 2019 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index issued by the World Economic Forum and the values of some estimation parameters are determined. Low ranking positions of Ukraine by the assessment of natural resources, environmental, civil, and social security, and business environment are emphasized. These factors are of utmost importance for the development of the tourism and recreation industry in the country and, in fact, are the decisive ones for international competitiveness of the country and its regions. The differences in the assessment of the competitiveness of the tourism and recreation industries of the regions on the global and national scales are outlined. The author makes conclusions regarding the possibility to use the TTCI methodology to assess the competitiveness of the tourism and recreation industries in the regions of Ukraine, albeit with the need to adjust the indicators of assessment parameters based on the use of expert evaluations and taking into account the peculiarities of the domestic statistics system and the pursuit of the minimization of the assessment subjectivity.