Transformations  in
Business & Economics

CULTURAL AND NATURAL RESOURCES AS DETERMINANTS OF TRAVEL AND TOURISM COMPETITIVENESS¹⁰
Petra Vasanicova, Sylvia Jencova, Beata Gavurova, Radovan Bacik

ABSTRACT. One of the very important determinants influencing travel and tourism competitiveness (TTC) of the tourism destination is the number and quality of natural and cultural resources. This paper aims to find out whether the Natural Resources and Cultural Resources pillars of the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) are interconnected. The second aim is to examine to what extent the TTCI scores can be predicted using only the Natural and Cultural Resources subindex of TTCI. Using data provided by the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report from 2019, we model the relationship between mentioned variables using quantile regression. Results show that in the context of a country's competitiveness, the country's natural and cultural resources should not be considered separately. Moreover, the overall TTCI of the country is largely determined by competitiveness in terms of cultural and natural resources. The quantile regression helps to predict travel and tourism competitiveness for several groups of countries according to conditional quantiles .

KEYWORDS:  tourism, competitiveness, cultural resources, natural resources, travel and tourism competitiveness index.

JEL classification:  O11, M23, L13.

¹⁰Acknowledgments:  This paper was supported by research grant VEGA No. 1/0741/20 "The application of variant methods in detecting symptoms of possible bankruptcy of Slovak businesses in order to ensure their sustainable development", VEGA No. 1/0694/20 "Relational marketing research - perception of e-commerce aspects and its impact on purchasing behaviour and consumer preferences", VEGA No. 1/0194/19 "Research on process-oriented management of financial management focusing on detection of tax evasion in terms of international business". This research was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy Sciences as part of the research project VEGA 1/0797/20: Quantification of Environmental Burden Impacts of the Slovak Regions on Health, Social and Economic System of the Slovak Republic.