Tourists’ destination perception of competitiveness based on travel motivation

Abstract

Travel motives influence perceptions of destination competitiveness. Research though has not focused on tourists’ point of view and how travel motives influence perceptions of destination competitiveness. The existing limited research on the subject is associated with specific countries although culture is a significant denominator. More research may expand our knowledge since in destination competitiveness analyses, the visitor perspective is less valued and even less on visitor segments by travel motivation. The present study is twofold: to examine whether there are significant differences in tourists’ perceptions of tourism destination competitiveness according to travel motivation, and second, to test two data modelling methods on the same data set to see if there are differences impacting destination strategies. The research is based on a questionnaire survey among 307 tourists who visited Oradea, Romania in 2023. At the methodological level, the contribution of the research is that data were processed with two methods: (a) the Importance-Performance Analysis, which is the classical method of analysis, and (b) the Importance-Performance Analysis in relation to Competition. At theoretical level, we aimed to address the gap on the tourist perspective in the literature by examining visitors’ perspectives. No significant differences were found in the perception of quality, taking into account the motivations of tourists, while depending on the method used in data modelling, it was found that different strategic measures are suggested. Implications for sustainable and balanced tourism destination management are discussed.