How to identify regional specialization measurement of clusters in tourism industry?

Abstract

Clusters theory and their application have been subject to several theoretical and practical approaches within the framework of regional economic development throughout the last decade and worldwide. Many studies have gone about identifying clusters in diverse contexts, nevertheless fundamentally based upon qualitative or quantitative (rarely both) approaches tending to overlook fundamental methodological aspects inherent to the operational functioning of clusters. Furthermore, very few have focused on the tourism sector with recourse to regional specialisation measurements. This research aims to contribute towards narrowing the empirical research methodological shortcomings through the proposal and application of a quantitative methodology capable of robustly identifying and locating tourism industry clusters in Portugal. As results we have identified a specific number of clusters distributed across ten activity tourism sectors related to accommodation, restaurants, entertainment and events with recourse to regional specialisation measurements. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.