Estimating the hospitality efficiency in Mexico using Data Envelopment Analysis

Abstract

Tourism has been an important source of income and employment for Mexico, and the economic numbers generated by the tourism have been increasing during last 2 decades. However, the question is how much more tourism capacity can Mexico offer? Therefore, it is necessary to search areas with lower hospitality performance to secure tourism growth and create adequate decision-making strategies. In this article, we constructed Data Envelopment Analysis model to estimate the hospitality efficiency of 32 Mexican states during a period from 1992 to 2018. Such a long period creates a unique insight of Mexican tourism. The results revealed high efficiency regarding national tourism, whereas the efficiency is low with respect to international tourism. This may not be unconnected with the fact that international tourism is centered in coastal states, whereas national tourism is mainly located in the in-land states. Such differences create opportunities to target better marketing strategies from the Mexican government.