Geneva, Switzerland, 4 March 2008 – Switzerland, Austria and Germany have the most attractive environments for developing the travel and tourism industry, according to the second annual Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2008, released today by the World Economic Forum. Australia, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden, Canada and France complete the top-10 list.
“The dependence of tourism on the quality of the natural environment leads national governments and the tourism industry to focus increasingly on environmental protection,” said Thea Chiesa, head of Aviation, Travel and Tourism at the World Economic Forum. (Watch the full 5-minute interview here)
In this context, this year’s Report, under the theme Balancing Economic Development and Environmental Sustainability, places a particular focus on the issue, both through a reinforced environmental component of the Index used to measure travel & tourism (T&T) competitiveness and through topics covered by the analytical chapters.
Improvements have been made to the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) this year. The “environmental regulation” pillar has been revised and improved as well as being re-named the “environmental sustainability” pillar to better reflect its components and to capture the increasingly recognized importance of sustainability in the sector’s development. Also, last year’s single pillar − natural and cultural resources − has been broken into its two subcomponents to create the two distinct pillars of “natural resources” and “cultural resources”. This provides a more nuanced and useful description of the strengths and weaknesses of countries. The model also uses better data proxies for some variables and includes a number of new concepts that were previously missing.
The TTCI measures the factors and policies that make it attractive to develop the T&T sector in different countries. It is composed of 14 pillars of travel and tourism competitiveness:
1. Policy rules and regulations
2. Environmental sustainability
3. Safety and security
4. Health and hygiene
5. Prioritization of travel and tourism
6. Air transport infrastructure
7. Ground transport infrastructure
8. Tourism infrastructure
9. Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure
10. Price competitiveness
11. Human capital
12. Affinity for travel & tourism
13. Natural resources
14. Cultural resources
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