María Jesús Such Devesa

The new Travel and Tourism Development Index (TTDI) of the World Economic Forum (WEF), an update of the previous Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), raises expectations. It represents a first step and suggests a greater concern for addressing tourism’s contribution to the sustainable development of countries. This study reviews the main changes introduced in the index’s evolution, which adopts a different methodological approach by incorporating more dimensions, pillars, and variables. It seeks to address some previously existing criticisms and provides an updated measure of destination development and competitiveness. Hence, the inclusion of sustainability as a new dimension in the TTDI reflects this concern, as it has become a crucial issue for destination development in recent years. The main conclusions highlight that, despite efforts to integrate and offer a broader approach to competitiveness with a focus on development, adopting a truly holistic perspective on sustainability across all its measures remains an essential and unresolved challenge.

Este estudio analiza los factores del entorno empresarial que influyen en la actividad de las micropymes turísticas rurales dirigidas por mujeres en Costa Rica. Basándonos en la teoría institucional, se seleccionaron elementos institucionales formales (capital humano, barreras burocráticas, financiación, apoyo gubernamental) e informales (códigos de conducta, normas sociales, papel familiar) que influyen en la actividad empresarial femenina. Se realizó un análisis comparativo cualitativo difuso (fsQCA) a una muestra de 28 mujeres empresarias turísticas rurales costarricenses para conocer las interacciones entre dichos factores que afectan a la generación de ganancias. Los resultados de la investigación revelan cinco configuraciones diferentes que conducen a bajas o nulas ganancias en la actividad empresarial femenina. Los factores formales (barreras burocráticas y bajos niveles de capital humano), combinados con la presencia o la ausencia de otros factores institucionales tanto formales como informales representan una condición crítica vinculada con la baja o nula generación de ganancias. Las implicaciones teóricas de esta investigación contribuyen al conocimiento de los elementos institucionales formales e informales que afectan el crecimiento de las empresas dirigidas por mujeres en el sector turístico rural costarricense, y en las implicaciones prácticas, contribuye al fortalecimiento de la actividad empresarial femenina. Palabras claves: teoría institucional, mujeres emprendedoras, turismo rural, Costa Rica

This note explores the differences existing in the level of per capita income and employment creation in residential and hotel-based tourist destinations. The exercise is conducted on a pool of 136 tourist destinations of the Spanish...

Factores de éxito en el emprendimiento femenino turístico rural en Costa Rica

Competitiveness, sustainability and innovation have been studied by the tourism literature at least since the 1990s. In spite of the advances made in the comprehension of these concepts, the dynamic nature of the industry continually generates new practical challenges for the public and private agents of the sector and scientific challenges for tourism researchers. Currently, globalization and digital progress, the emergence of new marketing platforms, the increased saturation of certain destinations and the COVID-19 pandemic are significantly affecting the competitiveness and sustainability of tourism activity. This calls for a scientific review of what we know about the competitiveness and sustainability of the sector and an analysis of its feasibility in this new competitive environment that is constantly and intensely transforming, even more so in the post-COVID19 era. The objective of this article is to conceptually analyze the state of this question, using Spain as a case study, as it has been the global leader in tourism competitiveness in recent years. The high level of consolidation of the Spanish tourism sector enables us to make a more in-depth analysis of the implications of these phenomena and to extract practical lessons for destinations that are in the more initial phases of their life cycles.

The tourism industry is undergoing accelerated changes that pose significant challenges for both destination and business managers as well as for researchers of the tourism phenomenon. Two of these challenges that are particularly relevant are the emergence of the sharing economy and its influence on the degree of overtourism perceived in the tourist destinations. This paper addresses the subject through the use of machine learning techniques. The findings show that machine learning techniques are especially well-suited tools for dealing with these kinds of tourism issues. The findings also show that for the Spanish case, tourism competitiveness is a key predictor of overtourism

This paper seeks to contribute to the investigation of urban management models considering the sharing economy. Adding an integrative perspective that evaluates the real impact on the territory of regulated and unregulated accommodation in cities in order to guarantee the sustainability of the long-term destinations, the tourist experience and the quality of life of the residents. The data of the hotels and tourist apartments are analyzed together with those of Airbnb. The data of the distribution of holiday dwellings offered by Airbnb were mapped out as new indicators capable of reflecting the real situation that demand and housing supply are experiencing in Madrid and Barcelona. It is understood that thanks to these indicators, tourist destinations are able to direct exchanges between collaborative economy and smart economy toward achieving the purpose of the model: making destinations sustainable.

Este artículo analiza el fenómeno de la mujer emprendedora en el turismo rural en Costa Rica, enmarcándola en el contexto latinoamericano y en el de las emprendedoras rurales. A partir de una revisión sistemática de la literatura, se define el perfil de las empresarias, sus motivaciones y las barreras que enfrentan. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto las importantes similitudes entre las emprendedoras turísticas rurales costarricenses con el resto de las emprendedoras en Latinoamérica y del mundo. Este estudio contribuye al conocimiento de las emprendedoras dentro del marco del turismo rural, esencial para el desarrollo económico del país.

This work studies the evolution of winter tourism in the main European ski resorts in recent years, exploring the degree of dependency it presents on the gross domestic product gaps of those European countries with the main registered incoming tourists attending to these ski resorts. This study consists of two parts: first, a cyclical behavior analysis of the evolution of winter tourism demand in these regions and its level of external dependence. This is achieved by the application of decomposition techniques of the economic cycle to verify the influence of these variables on the degree of cyclical fluctuation of winter tourism. For the second half, cointegration techniques are applied to test the linear or nonlinear combinations of these variables. This dual analysis allows a wider perspective, considering short- and long-term fluctuations, when analyzing co-movements and dependence of the demand of tourism-based destinations with a proxy variable for the income.