This chapter is an overview of benchmarking theory and its implications for performance improvement and competitive advantage. It has also addressed several weaknesses in past studies of benchmarking. There is little experience of putting benchmarking theory into practice.

This chapter has attempted to discuss the possible scope of destination management and approaches to it. It has also provided a rationale for destination benchmarking's contribution to achieving and maintaining destination competitiveness. In line with the guidelines provided by the benchmarking...

This chapter has provided the basis of what kind of measures can be developed and how they can be applied to tourist destinations from the perspective of internal and external benchmarking. The chapter has also included a short discussion about how tourism authorities can use such data as...

As a method of seeking best practices by comparing one's own performance with others', the concept of benchmarking emerged in business management in the 1980s. Benchmarking, thinking and looking out of the box, has been adopted by a variety of national and international businesses in order to...

This study was designed to test the use of a practical approach developed: (i) to measure external performance of two international tourist destinations (Turkey and Mallorca, Spain); and (ii) to investigate their competitive position not only against each other but also against other major...

This book provides insights on the topic of tourism destination management, focusing on the analysis of three main issues: (1) the factors influencing destination competitiveness, (2) the environmental dimension of tourism (including climate change issues); and (3) destination sustainability. The...

This introductory chapter outlines the structure of this book which draws attention to the centrality of the environmental dimension in tourism and how it is currently reshaping the subjects of destination competitiveness and sustainability.

This chapter focuses on competitiveness and innovation, with an application to the Spanish Mediterranean region. Building on a wide range of indicators, the chapter seeks to identify the main sources of tourism destination competitiveness. The most important factor for competitiveness identified is ...

This chapter analyses the tourism competitiveness of Curitiba, Parana, through the determination of the level of efficiency and the prioritization of competitiveness determinants. The determinants used in this analysis were based on the tourism competitiveness pillars defined by the Ministry of...

This chapter analyses how visual semantics in tourism marketing can be employed to foster the competitiveness of a destination. It is particularly interested in getting to know how the systematized use of schemas provides meaning to tourism communication and, in the current study case, how new...