Ana-Maria Nica1, Bartłomiej Aleksander Zdaniuk2, Puiu Nistoreanu3

ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVENESS IN THE TOURISM SECTORS WITHIN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE.

CASE STUDY ROMANIA

Tourism is a rapidly emerging sector in the globalized economy. The number of competing tourist destinations is vast and growing. A given region can be regarded as a commercial unit that tries to attract as many customers i.e. a wider part of the tourism demand (national and international) through an effective combination of input resources. Going down the same logical path, a tourist area must be able to effectively manage inputs, while the output, the result, consists of indicators such as arrivals, overnight stays, added value, employment, consumer satisfaction, etc.

A territory can thus evaluate its performance by quantifying its tourism efficiency , allowing decision makers to identify and check any malfunction in the aforesaid process for highlighting a set of policies and activities.

An efficient performance at regional level can then be determined based on competitiveness in the region. This analysis is centered on the tourism sector of Central and Eastern European region by highlighting the main strenghts and weaknesses of the analyzed tourism competitiveness, and strategic positioning possibilities of the Romanian tourism in the region.

Keywords: tourism, competitivity, emerging countries, Central and Eastern Europe, competitivity index tourism, tourism competitivity analysis, destination management.

JEL Classification: C13, C43, C82, F15, F59, F63, L83, O10, R11.

1. Introduction. Tourism specific activities in the area have a real impact on the sustainable economic and social development, considering the importance of their contribution to GDP and to the labor market performance.

The impact on the global economy highlights the economic importance of this domain in the following aspects: diversifying economic structures, national income, job creation, stimulating investment, inflation. (Ioncică, 2004)

1 Assistant., Ph.D., Faculty of Commerce, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania. 2 Lecturer, PhD, Institute of Political Science, University of Warsaw, Poland. 3 Prof., Ph.D., Faculty of Commerce, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania.

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In order to meet current challenges, including productivity, investment, new technologies, both researchers and policy makers state entities, support the need for countries to become more "competitive". Consequently, the concept of regional competitiveness is extended to regional level, so that the areas should maintain their current economic position or to evolve from this point of view, compared to other adjacent regions. Moreover, given the fact that both employers and investors tend to depart from the less to more competitive areas, a "competitive" region is defined as one unable to attract and retain efficient companies or maintain a high quality of life for its inhabitants (Church & Coles, 2007).

In the past, regional development policies have attempted to reduce regional disparities through substantial income generating activities, a large-scale infrastructure, thus attracting substantial investment.

Extending the concept of regional competitiveness is relatively recent, but recorded a major influence on the direction of regional development policies. These regional policies often "focus" on those areas which recorded the slowest growth rates, including the regions with industrial restructuring or geographically peripheral regions (Nica & Stănciulescu, 2011).Regional development is a term with a broad understandable spectrum, but it can also be seen as a general effort towards reducing regional disparities by undertaking income generating economic activities.

The positive impact of tourism on regional development, especially in areas with few alternative activities (Nistoreanu, Nica & Tănase, 2011), is clearly recognized. Tourism creates income from the tourism specific activities (lodging, F&B, entertainment), it reduces unemployment by increasing the demand for labor, and also supports the construction and maintenance of both collective and specific infrastructure. (Nistoreanu, 2005).

2. Economic competitiveness and its role. The current issue of competitiveness is to be addressed not only at micro but also at macroeconomic level because unfortunately, there is a lack of competitiveness of Romanian products / services on domestic and foreign markets.

The competitiveness of a nation is influenced by the level achieved by each of the actors within its economy. The productive sectors of the economy contribute by increasing their competitiveness in GDP growth, added value, while other branches enhance, through the developed activity, to the quality of life (health, education, welfare), the formation of a skilled workforce (education) etc.. (Nica & Stănciulescu, 2011)

In 2001 the World Economic Forum has suggested the calculation of an index of competitiveness, which been named Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and was originally developed by Jeffrey Sachs and John Mc Arthur. The essential purpose of the GCI is to analyze the potential global economies, noting areas of healthy economic growth in the medium or long term. GCI index is centered on three basic elements: (Blanke, Chiesa, 2011)

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1. competitive economic environment of each country analyzed; 2. quality of public institutions and their policies; 3. technological efficiency at country level.

Romania stands out in an average way, considering any criterion of the global competitiveness index. One of the basic requirements of economic development is infrastructure, under which it occupies the 110th inferior position.

Political and social events of the last half of the period have focused on macroeconomic stability, occupying position 13 to position 75 in CEE and worldwide. This instability still produces more effects that will alter the business environment and the public confidence in public institutions (world ranked 84 out of 133).

Regarding higher education Romania occupies a middle position (51) compared to the rest of analyzed countries. In terms of labor market efficiency, the 79th place shows that the labor force is not trained nor skilled enough in order to support efficient growth of the economy compared to other countries in CEE ranked higher such as Albania, Poland or Bulgaria.

Comparing the situation in Romania and Bulgaria, position 76 (same as previous year), gives a lower overall status. Analyzing each component, discrepancies arise regarding the basic requirements for growth (infrastructure 102th place, macroeconomic stability 45th, compared with the 75th of Romania, and in terms of labor efficiency - 54th place, 79th Romania).

Table 1. Global competitiveness index in Central and Eastern Europe

Country 2007 2009 2011Albania 88 96 108Bosnia 102 109 107

Bulgaria 71 76 76Croatia 77 72 61Estonia 33 35 32Latvia 70 68 54

Lithuania 47 53 44Macedoni

a79 84 89

Montenegro

49 62 65

Poland 39 46 53Czech R. 36 31 33Romania 67 64 68Serbia 96 93 85

Slovakia 60 47 46Slovenia 45 37 42Turkey 61 61 63

Hungary 52 58 62Data source: Based on http://www.weforum.org/issues/competitiveness-0/gci2012-data-platform/.

Technological readiness (58) ranks Romania an inferior position to the one occupied by Bulgaria and Hungary. Putting togheter Hungary and Romania, one can make the following clarifications: superior technological

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readiness (40), the necessary infrastructure for tourism development (57), and characteristics, higher education (35) give Hungary a detached four ahead positions. But the crisis has affected the Hungary also (83) in terms of macroeconomic stability of the country. Consumer market proves to be more efficient in Romania (61) than Bulgaria (81) and Hungary (64).

Romania does not have a favorable view of the essential requirements of global competitiveness, making this reference to infrastructure and economic stability, the only feature that provides a competitive advantage is the size of the market, but not sufficient criterion to support the development of other sectors of the economy, including tourism.

3. Tourism competitiveness. One can use a production function to determine the tourism and travel performance of a particular area.

Figure 1. The structure of the Tourism Competitiveness Index

Source:available at http://www.weforum.org/issues/travel-and-tourism-competitiveness

When a tourism region is not able to produce the maximum possible output, given the inputs, that particular tourism region is inefficient and bound to attractrelatively fewer tourists compared to competing areas. The reason may be that too many entries are used in an imbalance between inputs and outputs, and / or less optimal combination of input factors. This situation may be due to various deficiencies. First, policy makers may have intended believes, mistakenly, that the touristic region in question is growing or finds itself in the maturity stage within the product life cycle (Țigu, Maria & Nica, 2010), thus resorting to measures to support tourism investment, deepening imbalance between inputs and outputs.

Secondly, the tourist region is in the growth phase or maturity of the tourism product life cycle, but efforts are insufficient to maintain long-term market position.

Thirdly, (Nistoreanu, Tanase, 2008), an imbalance between inputs and outputs may be due to uncontrollable factors or unexpected events that prevent tourist region from obtaining optimum production.

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Tourism competitiveness indexTourism development is mainly determined by the available

resources (potential, technical and human capital) – known, generally speaking, as equippment factors – whose characteristics particularize the countries (many countries and destinations are known, devoted to a specific tourism product or form of spending holidays).

Table 2. Global Competitveness Index in Central and Eastern Europe

  SUBINDEXES OF T & T

  Overall index Regulatory framework

Business environment

Human, cultural, natural resources

Countries Rank Score Rank Score Rank Score Rank Score

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Bulgaria 48 4.39 54 4.79 44 4.32 51 4.05Czech Republic 31 4.77 26 5.26 37 4.56 31 4.48Estonia 25 4.88 17 5.5 19 5.09 50 4.06Cyprus 24 4.89 23 5.33 14 5.15 44 4.19Latvia 51 4.36 38 5.07 39 4.36 83 3.66Lithuania 55 4.34 33 5.14 46 4.21 85 3.66Hungary 38 4.54 24 5.29 45 4.28 48 4.06Malta 26 4.88 9 5.69 22 4.93 54 4.02Poland 49 4.38 49 4.86 65 3.81 30 4.48Romania 63 4.17 51 4.85 66 3.8 66 3.84Slovenia 33 4.64 29 5.19 33 4.7 53 4.03Slovakia 54 4.35 39 5.05 57 3.96 52 4.04

   

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Bulgaria 43 4.36 50 4.75 52 3.84 31 4.48Czech Republic 30 4.75 20 5.38 37 4.37 25 4.51Estonia 26 4.85 18 5.41 18 4.91 49 4.22Cyprus 24 4.87 27 5.24 17 5.04 40 4.34Latvia 45 4.34 35 5.1 43 4.17 82 3.75Lithuania 47 4.33 31 5.21 45 4 74 3.79Hungary 33 4.6 19 5.4 41 4.18 50 4.21Malta 25 4.86 13 5.56 25 4.73 43 4.28Poland 56 4.18 60 4.51 62 3.62 34 4.42Romania 69 3.88 72 4.29 66 3.55 73 3.79Slovenia 36 4.49 42 4.97 33 4.53 61 3.98Slovakia 38 4.42 33 5.11 46 3.94 51 4.19

Data source:available at http://www.weforum.org/issues/travel-and-tourism-competitiveness

Comparative analysis of tourism resources allows positioning each country on a tourist market - global or regional - and the differences between those highlight the advantages and the competitiveness, but also where action towards developing tourism are needed, given that the technical and human capital can be improved through investing. (Nistoreanu, Tanase, 2008)

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TCI) Program was developed by the World Economic Forum Partnership for aviation, tourism and travel. The scope of the index was to measure the factors and policies that make attractive the development of the tourism and travel sector in

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different countries. The index was developed between September 2005 and October 2006 by the World Economic Forum in close collaboration with strategic partners such as Booz Allen Hamilton, International Air Transport Association (IATA), UNWTO and WTTC.

TCI took as a starting point the Competitiveness Monitor developed by WTTC between 2001-2004, which aimed to measure the extent to which a country offers a competitive environment for tourism and travel. The monitor includes a number of indicators, taking into account the critical concepts of tourism industry development and price competitiveness, infrastructure, human resources, environment and technology. (Hornoiu, Tănase, Nistoreanu, 2009)

Figure 2. Tourism competitiveness index, structure

Data source: based on Table 2

After a slump in 2009 (Blanke, 2011), the tourist arrivals indicator increased again in 2011 and returned to pre-crisis levels. World Travel & Tourism Council estimates that from direct and indirect activities, the tourism sector now provides a remarkable 9.2% of world GDP.

This sector has always been sensitive to external shocks, although the most recent crisis has caused a stronger dip than previous downturns. For example, in the aftermath of 9/11, travelers avoided flying for a couple of months but quickly picked up their usual travel behavior thereafter. This led to a drop of 1.5 percent in travel spending from 2001 to 2002, while overall GDP growth was unaffected (+2.9 percent).

The recent economic crisis led more people to change their travel plans more significantly because of their worsened economic situation, reflected in a 0.6 percent drop in real GDP growth from 2008 to 2009. (WTTC, 2010)

Consequently, the economic crisis left travelers from the western hemisphere insecure about their future economic well-being (for a short time in late 2008 and early 2009) and made distant travel look like what it was just a few decades ago: a luxury affordable to only a lucky few. However, from 2010 to 2011, spending on personal travel and tourism is

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expected to have recovered somewhat, with an increase of 1.6 percent. This increase still, however, lags significantly behind global GDP recovery which is 4.7 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. (IMF, 2012)

The travel and tourism sector thus clearly remains a critical one for the world economy, accounting for a significant share of global employ-ment and also providing an important opportunity for developing countries to move up the value chain toward the production of higher-value-added services. In this context, an analysis of the travel and tourism competitive-ness of individual economies around the world remains pertinent, espe-cially in the areas considered as „emerging”. (Ringbeck, 2009)

Figure 3. The impact of the financial crisis on tourism

Data source:available at http://www.weforum.org/issues/travel-and-tourism-competitiveness

Countries such as Turkey or Bulgaria gained throughout the crisis by attracting price-sensitive travelers from crisis-struck outbound regions in Western Europe. Economies losing both on tourist arrivals and interna-tional tourism receipts are considered to represent the crisis epicenter, as shown in Figure 3.These are the major European and North American des-tinations that suffered from weakened long-haul or regional source mar-kets. Most of them—France and Spain being among the most visited coun-tries worldwide—also lost significantly on tourism receipts, hinting at less revenue per visitor and, thus, price pressure. (Blanke, Chiesa, Trujillo, 2011)

Bulgaria has kept its growth momentum partly because (and not despite) of the crisis attracting budget-orientated tourists from Western Europe seeking low-cost alternatives to traditional sun-and-beach destina-tions in the Euro zone. More than 75 percent of Hungary’s inbound travel-ers in 2009 were same-day visitors from neighboring countries who were drawn in by the favorable exchange rate of the Hungarian currency. (Blanke, Chiesa, Trujillo, 2011)

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The group of twelve European countries in the above table have been chosen as such taking into account various factors, like geographical position, near dates of joining the European Union, close trade and tourism connection and cooperation, common historic facts, as most of them have experienced a period of socialist regime, the transition period in terms of economic evolution, all of those and more qualify this group as an Euro-pean emergent area of economic development.

The data in Table 2 present the situation of the travel and tourism competitiveness index in the central and eastern part of the European Union, at two different moments: the year 2007 and the year 2011, chosen as such in order to better illustrate the effects of the financial crisis in this region.

As all of these economies have experienced changes, influenced by the crisis in the travel and tourism domain, differenced in particular cases can be highlighted.

While Cyprus seems to be the only country which held on its 25th position in the overall ranking, maintaining a close to the original 4.87 - 4.89 value of the index in the two analyzed years, other economies experi-enced major drops in the above mentioned list, such as: Latvia (from the 45th position to the 51st, although the difference in the index value is rather low, of 0.02), Lithuania (from the 47th position to the 55th, with a difference of 0.01 in the index value), Hungary (from the 33rd to the 38th place in the ranking, with a 0.06 difference).

The most dramatic drop was registered in Slovakia’s case, as it passed from being the 38th on the overall index list to being on the 54th position, with a value difference of 0.07.

On the other side, there are countries whose travel and tourism sectors seem to be recovering faster from the global financial crisis, over-coming difficulties and even moving uphill in the ranking. This is the par-ticular case of Romania, which, with a value index difference of 0.29 moved up from the 69th place to the 63rd.

Poland constitutes the other economy which is going against the general registered trend, with a move-up of 7 places (from 56th to 49th) and a general difference of 0.2 in the index value.

With this evolution of the above mentioned cases, one of the trends in European travel and tourism domain trends is being proven. The global financial crisis has brought changes also in the consumer behavior, as tourists put these countries on their vacation-destination maps, switch-ing from more traditional destinations to ones considered more accessible.

4. The relative level of tourism competitiveness of the Romanian tourism sector – evolution and strategic approach. Com-petitiveness is a very current phenomenon in the economic and social co-ordinates. Amid the global financial crisis, which significantly affected the global tourism industry, the competitiveness of tourism destination coun-tries was an extremely important element to finding ways to resolve or mitigate its effects.

Romania's competitiveness in the tourism sector goes over its competitors' as follows:

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to Bulgaria - pillars: Price (chapters rates per room in hotels in 2008 purchasing power parity index, the tourism tax), Infrastructure (only the chapters roads and railways) Environment (carbon dioxide emissions lower than Bulgaria, but higher population density) Technology (only in terms of high-tech exports);

to Croatia - pillars: Price (only in terms of tourism taxation level), Environment (carbon dioxide emissions less than in Croatia, but at a higher density), International Openness (in terms of level of taxation in international trade) and Social;

to Hungary - only for pillars: Social and Prices; to Slovakia - only for pillars: Prices, Environment,

Technology (exclusively in terms of high-tech exports), International Openness (visa section) and Social;

to Czech Republic - only for pillars: Price (the tax on tourism) and Social;

to Poland - in case of pillars: Price (the tax on tourism), Economic Impact of Tourism, Technology, International Openness (openness index in tourism) and Social;

Analyzing the situation in Romania, it shows little difference to those of other countries in the area, in terms of tourism competitiveness. Even if cultural resources (49) make a difference to other CEE countries, Romania is facing an on-going problem: land and air infrastructure (83) insufficiently developed, low price competitiveness in the tourism industry (110), and the attitude of Romanian population towards tourism (102 globally), make Romania a destination insufficiently competitive in the CEE region.

Figure 4. Strategic recommendations for the Romanian tourism sector

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Tourism products

Creation of tourism products

Development of tourism infrastructure

Quality of tourism products

Marketing actions

Operating the systems of tourism information

Rising efficiency of the marketing actions

Human resources in tourism

Training the human resources in tourism

Social tourism

Source: proposed by authors

Bulgaria has a superior situation in terms of indicators directly characteristic to the tourism activity - tourism infrastructure, position 18 to 34 for Romania, and to the priority orientation towards tourism, position 78 to 102 of Romania. Regarding tourism perception by the local popula-tion, Romania occupies the position 105 of the 133 at international level.

Strategic ways of improving Romanian tourism sector s competi-tiveness withing the CEE. Based on the experience of more tourism competitive countries in the Central and Eastern Europe, some strategic ways of improving the Romanian tourism sector are highlighted, as summarized in Figure 4.

The creation of a competitive tourism product is one of the most important fields of action.Development of tourism products will focus not only on the integration of various elements and components of the supply, eg attractions, tourist accommodation, services, communications infrastructure, information and brand into a coherent whole but also the development of a modern infrastructure, the quality improvement of existing products and investment efficiency.

The selection of products to be developed must take place as a result of preliminary testing of the market, both domestic and foreign. Tourism products will be created and primarily developed locally in cooperation with local authorities and then at regional level for products involving more than one region.

The concept "from idea to product" is the basic and, together with the principle "think global, act local" should be widely used to enhance tourism competitiveness of products and therefore that of the destination.

Other strategic means of becoming more competitive is through the labor force. Highly qualified staff and their professional skills are the key to achieving a high quality of the tourism services and implementation of quality tourism products in a highly dynamic context of ongoing structural framework.

The tourism industry, especially due to skilled human resources, can help obtain a very strong competitive position. The main goal of the job providers (employers) should be endorsed by promoting the idea of training staff in order to meet the growing needs of customers.

Tourism development needs full support from the social framework. It contributes to the development of appropriate consumer attitudes, which enhances the activity of the whole society through tourism and recreation and developes interest in cultural, natural and environmental values.

The social framework is of particular importance for tourism, especially for youth tourism. This type of tourism integrates school and extra-school education, vocational education and training.

Las but not least, marketing actions are the key to increasing the competitiveness of the Romanian tourism sector.Creating a functional

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tourism marketing in Romania aims at strengthening promotion and communication, at increasing the number of foreign tourist arrivals. The implementation of this system, however, requires close cooperation between local and regional governments and of that within the tourism sector.

5. Conclusions. Even if the short-term outlook for the global travel and tourism sector is considered promising, tourism destinations will continue to face increasing volatility of traveler demand caused by short-term shocks such as economic downturns, currency fluctuations, pandemic outbreaks, etc.

Policymakers should aim to manage downturn periods by linking consistent short-term crisis responses with their broader travel and tourism development agenda to build the resilience of their tourism sector and to find paths to future growth: build up fast crisis-response capability based on close cooperation between the public and private sectors, reduce access barriers and implement an open market environment, foster local initiatives and entrepreneurship to promote domestic tourism, introduce more flexible investment schemes to create sustainable growth.

These years of global downturn have demonstrated that, although the crisis hurt traditional source markets, some emerging tourism destinations have been able to grow not only because of the weakness of competing destinations but also by leveraging the crisis to pave the way for future growth.. Overall, the sector has passed through rough times after the financial crisis, with almost all major destinations having seen a significant decline in visitor numbers and receipts while overarching trends have con-tinued to reshape the sector as a whole. The economic downturn of 2008–09 has left lasting uncertainty on the long-term growth prospects of the sector, which had become accustomed to high growth rates year over year. Pointing out several important aspects, it can be concluded that Romania needs a stable legislative framework with clearly defined lines of action. The overall position 66 for tourism competitiveness index should be countered by a series of measures taken by the managing entities in tourism.

Every year vocational schools and faculties of tourism provide skilled labor force, which, however, prefers to changed domains because of the inadequate working conditions that do not prove competitive.

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4. Hornoiu, R., Tanase, M.O., Nistoreanu, P. (2009). ECOROM – indicators system proposal of quality certification un ecotourism. Amfiteatru Economic, vol 11 (26), Bucharest, pp330-338.

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Author(s):

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Ana-Maria NicaAssistant PhD

Tourism and Geography Department, Faculty of CommerceBucharest University of Economic Studies. 6th Romana Square, Mihai Eminescu Building, Bucharest, 010374, Romania

Research interests: Business administration, Tourism - Ecotourism, Hotels and restaurants technology, Hotel management, Education.

Phone: : 0040 21 319 19 00, int 187e-mail: ana.nica@com.ase.ro

Bartlomiej Aleksander ZdaniukLecturer PhD

Institute of Political Science, University of Warsaw, Poland

Research interests: History of democracy, Economic policies, Education.

Phone: : 0048 22 826 54 28e-mail: bartlomiej.zdaniuk@uw.edu.pl

Puiu NistoreanuProfessor PhD

Tourism and Geography Department, Faculty of CommerceBucharest University of Economic Studies.

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6th Romana Square, Mihai Eminescu Building, Bucharest, 010374, Romania

Research interests: Business administration, Management, Marketing, Services, Tourism - Ecotourism, Hotels and restaurants technology, Hotel management, Sustainable development, Education

Phone: 0040213191900, int. 202e-mail: puiu.nistoreanu@com.ase.ro

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