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This article concentrates on the application of econometrics in the development of international tourism marketing strategies. In particular it examines how empirical results can be related to a market choice matrix in identifying the most attractive countries for allocating marketing resources and limited promotional funds.

Within the scope of this brief lecture about “financing of tourism in the Netherlands”, I want first to explain about which aspects I shall speak, as it is not possible and even not desirable to give here a complete discussion on this subject.

This study aims to propose a data-driven approach, based on open-source tools, that makes it possible to understand customer satisfaction of the accommodation offer of a whole country.

The method starts by extracting information from all hotels of Portugal available at TripAdvisor through Web scraping. Then, a support vector machine is adopted for modeling the TripAdvisor score, which is considered a proxy of customer satisfaction. Finally, knowledge extraction from the model is achieved using sensitivity analysis to unveil the influence of features on the score.

The model of the TripAdvisor score achieved a mean absolute percentage error of around 5 per cent, proving the value of modeling the extracted data. The number of rooms of the unit and the minimum price are the two most relevant features, showing that customers appreciate smaller and more expensive units, whereas the location of the hotel does not hold significant relevance.

National tourist offices can use the proposed approach to understand what drives tourists’ satisfaction, helping to shape a country’s strategy. For example, licensing new hotels may take into account the unit size and other characteristics that make it more attractive to tourists. Furthermore, the procedure can be replicated at any time and in any country, making it a valuable tool for data-driven decision support on a national scale.

This paper starts by putting an end to an illusion: namely, that Switzerland's wealth lies primarily in tourism and that Swiss people are mostly composed of hotel porters, of peasants and shepherds dressed up in alpine costumes, blowing the alphorn or yodelling the whole day through. This picturesque way of life belongs definitely to the past.

Government′s role in the marketing of tourism products is examined. Government intervention varies with the economic value placed on tourism. National Tourism Offices are the key agents of intervention; their role becomes more important as competition in the tourism marketplace increases and consumers become better informed and more demanding. Activities may include: collection and control of visitor data, creation and maintenance of trade contacts abroad, provision of literature and expert advice for the travel trade, and regulation and co‐ordination of an industry characterised by diversity and fragmentation.

Most tourist experts agree that travel is a two‐way business as an international trade. While every country is anxious to increase its exports, it is in fact equally important to think about imports. The Tourist Review has published a number of interesting articles about tourist promotion and, together with other journals, has given a great deal of information on tourism as an export. This article, however, deals with Britain as a tourist market. It is written in the hope that tourist experts in other countries will from time to time report on their national travel market and so increase the fund of knowledge of the method and technique in developing world travel.