Tourism destination competitiveness: The French regions case

Abstract

In this paper we assess and compare tourism destinations in terms of their performance. The proposed efficiency assessment procedure is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and precisely on the Directional Distance Function. This methodology is here explained as easiest as possible and it is applied to the evaluation of the twenty-two French regions. The motivation for the analysis lies in the fact that these destinations have to (or will have to) face a decrease in their competitiveness. Then, the aim of the paper is to start a reflection on the performance of the 22 French regions; for that, its only objective is to measure the efficiency of these destinations. Indeed, knowing what the best practices are is good news for Destination Management Organizations and tourism institutions in the perspective of a benchmarking procedure. The paper still tries to explain the scores.