The WEF Tourism Competitiveness Report: Measuring the non-Measurable?!

This article discusses the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum in the context of existing research on this topic as well as from a methodological perspective. A positive ranking can be achieved when ranking the tourist competitiveness of individual countries, however, a critical examination of the procedure is appropriate. Main criticisms are in particular the missing embedding of the report into the existing research, the lack of traceability (rationalization) of the selection and weighting of the measured variables (which is partly arbitrary and demonstrably ignores important quantities), the type of data collection (survey and hard data) and their amalgamation. For this reason, the results may only be noted with a critical eye. This is particularly true for Switzerland, which has lost its appeal - despite having been in first place for some time - due to its price disadvantage. (©Christian Laesser. All rights reserved.)