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Are the Most Competitive Countries the Most Innovative Ones?

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Impact Assessment in Tourism Economics

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Abstract

Tourism is an important economic activity in current world economy. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (World Economic Impact Report, 2013) this industry has grown faster than other industries. In modern economies, innovation is an essential factor for the competitiveness of firms, and being the tourism industry one of the most promising industries in the world, is relevant to understand the contribution of innovation to the competitiveness of this industry. So, this study aims to relate the competitiveness of tourism with innovation. With this propose a comparative analysis of a set of touristic countries is conducted, based on their score in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index and in a set of innovation’s variables. The obtained results suggest that in the last years the competitiveness of regions had increased more in the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe, and that the more competitive countries are advanced economies. For other side, the countries with a high level of innovation are correlated with a high competitive level, and countries with a low competitive level observed an increasing incentive to innovate.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Miozzo and Soete (2001) taxonomy was a pioneering study on the sectorial pattern of innovation in services. These authors considered the technological regime and types of Schumpeterian innovations proposed by Pavitt (1984).

  2. 2.

    The TTCI 2011 and 2013 in http://www3.weforum.org/docs/TTCR/2013/TTCR_OverallRankings_2013.pdf

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism and Research Unit GOVCOPP, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Elisabeth T. Pereira

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  1. Elisabeth T. Pereira
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Correspondence to Elisabeth T. Pereira .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Business, Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Álvaro Matias

  2. VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Peter Nijkamp

  3. Centre for Adv Studies in MGMT & Econ, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal

    João Romão

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Pereira, E.T. (2016). Are the Most Competitive Countries the Most Innovative Ones?. In: Matias, Á., Nijkamp, P., Romão, J. (eds) Impact Assessment in Tourism Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14920-2_7

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