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Building on a TripAdvisor data for five Mediterranean destinations, namely, Greece, Croatia, Italy, France and Spain, this study analyses the constituents of restaurants' online reputation and their interrelation with destination competitiveness, in particular two Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) pillars, namely, Prioritisation of Travel and Tourism and Price Competitiveness.

The analysis has revealed that restaurants' online reputation is positively influenced by two factors, namely, Core elements, i.e. cooking, service and price-quality ratio, and Price. Furthermore, the restaurants' online reputation does not influence destination competitiveness (TTCI) directly, but indirectly throughout its main constituents, i.e. service and price. Price is the only variable with significant influence on overall TTCI. Within the sample of these destinations, Balkan countries, i.e. Greece and Croatia, perform very well in terms of their restaurants' online reputation. On the other hand, considering the overall TTCI rating, their competitive positions are substantially lower than those of Italy, France and Spain.

The study provides new insights into the relationship between gastronomic offer and destination competitiveness, and valuable practical implications for destination and hospitality management. Moreover, this study addresses various gaps in existing research on this topic. Specifically, it validates the reputation elements presented online using TripAdvisor data and analyses the impact of electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) not only as the outcome variable of other constructs, as is the case in the literature, but also as a central construct of the analysis. In doing so, it extends current research on this topic and fills the gap regarding the inclusion of the supply-side stakeholder perspective, which has long been recognised as necessary in any attempts to measure competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which price competitiveness accounts for the observed precipitated decline in the number of meetings taking place in Macau from 2009 to 2012, in spite of the rapid growth in overall tourism, diversification in its tourism offering, and the sizable expansion of its capacity and facilities for hosting business tourism over the same period.

Analyzing historical as well as comparative data in a cross-section analytic design, the study suggests an implied competitive price range (using comparative accommodation prices as a proxy) beyond which financial incentives may be ineffectual in attracting meetings

Examination of price levels as a proxy of competitiveness in attracting meeting events in the single case of Macau proved inconclusive. Other factors beyond mere price competitiveness likely account for the declining number of meetings in Macau from 2009 to the end of 2012.

Overall, the above findings pose a challenge for the continued general development of MICE industry in Macau and its meetings industry in particular. Despite the noble and generous efforts of its government agencies to arrest the decline in the number of meetings and maintain Macau’s position as a meetings industry hub through monetary incentives and subvention packages for organizers, it would benefit them and the private sector to explore channeling more resources toward addressing the fundamental and structural factors that can improve long-term competitiveness in attracting more meeting events.

This paper aims to examine the competitiveness trends and rankings of the Irish dairy sector at the farm and trade levels, relative to selected European Union (EU) Member States, in the context of the removal of the EU milk quota in 2015.

Competitiveness indicators including partial productivity measures and accountancy-based indicators were used for farm competitiveness, and net export market share and normalised revealed comparative advantage (NRCA) were used for export competitiveness.

Amongst the countries examined, Ireland had the highest growth in partial productivity indicators and was ranked first with the lowest total costs and cash costs per kg of milk solids post-quota. However, the total economic cost sub-components showed that Irish dairy farmers had high opportunity costs for owned land and labour. While Irish dairy products such as butter and powders have demonstrated growth potential in competitiveness post-quota with Irish butter and whey ranked in top three relative to other countries, other products, i.e. cheese and liquid milk have declined in competitiveness according to key export competitiveness indicators used.

The challenge for Irish dairy farmers is how to mitigate relatively high land and labour costs, which can limit farm competitiveness in the long run. The key players in the Irish dairy industry can now better position themselves in the global dairy market, recognizing the competitiveness dynamics of the different dairy products and their competitors. Policy implications and further areas of research have been identified to help improve the overall competitiveness position. It is surprising that Irish butter is a leader in the EU, yet not much research has been done to understand the market dynamics of this sector.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to use both farm and export competitiveness measures to analyse the Irish dairy industry relative to other countries in the context of quota abolition. Unlike previous studies on dairy export competitiveness, this study has disaggregated the processed dairy products, which allowed for the ranking of countries and comparability across countries using NRCA.

Competitiveness is one of the most misunderstood concepts of the 1990s. It has drawn substantial attention from the government and business communities during the last 25 years. Morrisson et al. (1988) noted that between 1983 and 1987, the term competitiveness appeared more than 5700 times in the titles of newspapers and magazine articles. The growth of importance and interest can also be observed from the increase in the bibliographical entries in ABI/Inform database. From 1981 to 1986, the topic “international competitiveness” increased by about 26 listings per year (a total of 159 in 6 years) and the rate increased to 45 listings per year from 1987 to 1993. Academic interest in the area has also increased and as a result, new developments contemplating conceptualization and understanding of competitiveness are taking place. However, to no one's surprise, writers from different disciplines offer a variation in perspective when describing the concept, understanding, and postulation of competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the global competitiveness of the top ten wooden furniture exporting countries with several approaches and to test the effect of export prices (EXPRs) on the global competition.

Countries' competitiveness levels were measured with revealed comparative advantage (RCA), normalised RCA (NRCA), revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) and trade balance index. Furthermore, panel regression analysis techniques were used to test the effects of EXPR on RCA, NRCA and RSCA in the wooden furniture industry (WFI).

Although the comparative advantage approaches give different results, the global competitiveness of Poland and Vietnam is at a high level in all approaches. Canada has been the country with the weakest global competitiveness in all approaches. According to the results of the analysis, EXPRs positively affect all the competitive advantage indexes. As a result, the competitiveness of the WFI is affected by the non-price factors instead of the EXPR.

The framework allows us to measure and illustrate the export competitiveness of the WFI and permits a global comparison. Similar analyses can be made for different labour-intensive sectors. In addition, analysis can be made to identify non-price factors for the WFI sector. Thus, more specific inferences can be made.

This study is useful for policymakers, government officials, the industry associations and the company executives to assess their export competitiveness in the WFI. Thus, they can determine whether to shift scarce resources to this industry or other industries. In addition, this study may affect the price competition policy of the sector representatives in the global market.

This study deals with the competitiveness of the WFI with different approaches. And this study determines the importance of price for global competition in this sector.

This study aims to explore the role of cultural distance, economic integration, price competitiveness and substitution prices for tourism arrivals between 10 Southeast Asian (ASEAN) countries and 22 other origin countries from 2007 to 2019.

A panel-data gravity model is applied to estimate tourism demand in the ASEAN region. An index of cultural distance (time-variant) is introduced to examine the role of cultural differences across bilateral partners. Moreover, relative prices and substitution prices are introduced to the gravity equation to estimate price elasticities. Finally, this study tested whether the ASEAN free trade agreements (FTAs) encourage intraregional tourism arrivals. Two-panel regression approaches are used to test the model.

Cultural distance positively affects tourism inflows, boosting foreign arrivals. Income and price elasticities are important determinants in the demand model for ASEAN. A gain in price competitiveness versus alternative destinations can lead to substitution in destination choice. Meanwhile, geographic distance has a negative impact on arrivals, suggesting that connectivity and transportation are key in boosting tourism inflows in ASEAN. A decline in the disposable incomes of tourists caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may reduce tourism arrivals in the region. However, when currencies in ASEAN weaken, and consumer prices are lower than in other destinations, arrivals in ASEAN will be stimulated. FTAs have facilitated travel intra-ASEAN, which is an advantage over the extra-ASEAN sector.

Cultural heritage could be used in tourism promotion as ASEAN can attract tourists seeking novelty and new excitements. ASEAN countries could create complementary destinations and jointly promote cultural heritage to accelerate the region’s recovery. The depreciation of currencies in ASEAN and the gain in relative price competitiveness could attract more tourist visits, helping the region reestablish tourism activities in a postpandemic economy.

The model accounts for three key variables in the gravity approach: cultural distance in ASEAN tourism inflows, the effects of the ASEAN economic community on intraregional tourism, and relative and alternative price competitiveness. This study enriches the literature about tourism-demand approaches in modeling tourism arrivals.

This study aims to develop the concept of competitive productivity focussing on the interplay between national competitive productivity (NCP) and firm competitive productivity (FCP) based on the following research question: how does the competitive productivity framework explain the influence that government has on public–private procurement programmes?

A case study is conducted on the South African Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme. Data were collected using an exploratory, mixed methods design, starting with national level secondary data on five bid windows between 2011 and 2014, followed by eight in-depth qualitative interviews with industry experts.

The findings indicate that non-financial factors, such as trust (through consistent and transparent government policy) as well as a pragmatic attitude on the part of government, increased competition and ultimately resulted in a productive procurement process.

By understanding what moderating factors influence competitiveness in African procurement programmes, using competitive productivity (CP) as a framework, the research contributes to development of government policy and procurement programmes. Incidentally, there is little doubt that improving infrastructure and in turn a greater percentage of access to electricity leads to increased competitiveness of the nation, firms and individuals, thus enabling companies to grow and operate with more stability.

Originality is demonstrated through the interplay of NCP and FCP, where the constructs of culture, benchmarking and performance were found to have the strongest influence of the six constructs of the CP model.

Collaborative relationships (CRs) in supply chains have become central in international business. Strategic performance measurement systems (SPMSs) establish a causal chain of performance measures that can be aligned with strategic goals and can link performance measures with business processes and suppliers. This study investigates whether CRs in supply chains positively affect buyer competitiveness by using SPMSs. Firm competitiveness is described in terms of product cost-price, delivery, as well as flexibility. We demonstrate through the use of SPMSs that CRs indirectly and positively influence the competitiveness of delivery and flexibility. This chapter contributes to the growing literature on the role of SPMSs in linking the relationship between CRs and competitiveness.

This research aims to contrast bid competitiveness with respect to the average bid auction (ABA) and the non-ABA bidding formats used by the Public Works Department (PWD) of Malaysia.

The research uses the ordinary least square regression and the Monte–Carlo simulation to point out significant predictors which affect the bid ratio and fitting probability distributions to bidding data, respectively.

This research shows that the bidding strategy adopted is dependent on the different formats used. In the ABA format, bidders are more likely to submit identical bid prices. In the non-ABA format, they bid according to the first-price auction strategy, which suggests greater variation between bid prices as a winning strategy and the reduction in the bid price to an estimated price ratio when more bidders bid.

Bidders lose more money when the distance between the project location and a firm’s operational office is greater. Best-fit probability density functions follow a gamma distribution for the ABA format and a Weibull distribution for the non-ABA format. The location and number of bidders affect bidders’ strategy to win.

This research presents empirical insights concerning the comparisons of different type of bidding formats practiced by PWD of Malaysia and its implications on the construction companies’ bidding behaviors especially when it comes to its economic consequences. The significant factors that affect the different auction mechanisms used can serve as a basis for improving the present methods employed by PWD and in other countries.

Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) tourism has established as a tourism segment that is growing in popularity. It is less seasonality dependent, promotes the offer of services and contributes to the development of the sector. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the competitiveness factors for the improvement of MICE tourism in the city of Mazatlan.

It was developed with a mixed approach, using quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques, such as interviews with experts, surveys of stakeholders in the tourism sector and documentary analysis. Based on the theoretical review, the following four competitiveness factors were defined for MICE tourism: 1) resource factors, 2) destination management factors, 3) conditioning factors of the environment and 4) conditioning factors of the demand, applying and importance-performance analysis.

The results indicate that the factors of competitiveness in the case of the study that had greater importance and better performance are the conditioning factors of the demand and resource factors. However, the development and implementation of comprehensive destination management strategies are required to improve this segment, as well as giving due importance to taking into account the important conditioning factors of the environment.

This study makes a theoretical contribution to the literature on the competitiveness of tourist destinations in the MICE segment by identifying the factors for its development, as well as the practical implications for the specific case study. In addition to this, it was identified that there are few empirical studies that analyze the factors that contribute to improving the competitiveness of this segment.