Summary Doctoral dissertation business Administration: A study of tourist destination competitiveness in Thua Thien Hue, Viet Nam

On the basic of theoretical and methodolody study of tourist destination competitiveness to build, accredit and propose theoretical model to evaluate competitiveness of tourist destination, and to use in the analysis and evaluation of competitiveness of Thua Thien Hue tourism.

HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS

LE THI NGOC ANH

A STUDY OF TOURIST DESTINATION COMPETITIVENESS IN THUA THIEN HUE, VIET NAM

SUMMARY DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Code: 9340101

Supervisor 1: ASSOC PROF DR BUI THI TAM

Supervisor 2: ASSOC PROF DR NGUYEN DANG HAO

HUE - 2019

This study was completed at:

Hue College of Economics, Hue University

Suppervisor 1: Associate Professor Dr Bui Thi Tam

Suppervisor 2: Associate Professor Dr Nguyen Dang Hao

I PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Reaons for selecting this topic

In the last few decades, there has been rapid development of tourism as the biggest industry of the world’s economy This contributes to foreign exchange, employment and income, boosting other industries to enhance…According to the travel and tourism competitiveness report 2015 of World Economic Forum, “…although the world is facing geopolitical tensions from Middle East, Ukraine to South East Asia, terrorism is spreading worldwide, the impact of these incidents on travel has not been clear” While some nation destinations suffer from decreasing international visitors, some others don’t In recent years, the international tourism and travel are still developing Total international tourists reach the record of 1.19 billion in 2015, increase by 52 million compared to 2014 (UNWTO, 2016)

As for World Travel and Tourism Council, current travel and tourism add to 10.2% GDP in the world with revenue of 7,613.3 billionUSD, accounting for 6.6% turnover, adding to 9.6% global employment This number can reach 12.1% in 2027 (WTTC, 2017)

When international tourism market improves, destination competitiveness is considered the crucial issue to impact on tourism business Pearce (1997:25) states that “When the world’s tourism becomes competitive…, all the awareness of development, strength, and weakness in the destination’s competitiveness would be extremely important” Also under this view, Crouch và Ritchie (2000:6) emphasizes “competitiveness of the destination can impact

on industry’s internal categorization, then, it (competitiveness) is the matter of interest for enterprises and policy makers”

As for tourist destinations, competitive capability is regarded as motivation and development objective of the destination, because competitiveness will increase opportunities to attract tourist market, to boost tourism, as well as other supplementary industries, to increase socio-economic development of the destination, for the sake of poverty alleviation The building and maintenance of competitive capability is a strategic task on the daily basis of the destination Prior to the deployment of strategy and solution to develop destination and enhance competitive capability, some core issues need to be resolved such as: which factor constitutes competitive capability of the destination? Method

to measure these factors? Can the inventory of variable be applied to analyse competitive capability of a specific destination? These questions attract attention from researchers and practictioners, but there has not been any answer Even when the tourist destination succeeds in market share, it is still difficult to apply the variable inventory to evaluate competitive capability of a specific destination

As for tourism, competitive capability is the scale to measure activities of the industry

in the interanational tourism The sector’s contribution into the local and national development depends a great deal on its competitiveness As for enterprises, competitive capability is the vital factor to define the existence and growth of enterprises Each tourism enterprise needs to locate factors contributing to competitive advantage and competitive

capability of the destination, to assess and exploit competitive advantage in the most beneficial way to enhance its competitiveness on the market Therefore, destination’s competitive capability is the interest of various stakeholders such as development and management policy makers, researchers and enterprises

In terms of study, althouth late, researches of destination’s competitive capability attract lots of attention from experts and other practitioners such as Crouch & Ritchie, 1993, 1999; Dwyer, Forsyth, & Rao, 2000; Vengesayi, 2003; EkinandAkbulut, 2015 Especially, the study of Crouch & Richie (1999) is one of the efforts in generalizing variables to study competitiveness in tourism and industry competitiveness to research competitive capability

of the destination (Enright & Newton, 2005) Previously, some studies focused on

competitive advantage of some resources or price such as Poon, 1993; Chon &Mayer, 1995 Studies on destination’s competitive capability in recent time have focused on solving the definition, approach and operationalize variables to measure tourist destination’s competitive capability of the nation, territory or a specific local area

Accordingly, evaluation model of competitive capability includes: 1) business factors; 2) factors of management, destination planning and development; 3) factors of tourism resources and destination attraction

However, international studies emphasized that there has not been any complete model

of tourist destination competitive capability because there was not any synthesic evaluation framework towards various aspects related to destination’s competitiveness This sets a demand towards tourist destination competitive capability to improve theoretical model as well as recommendations and policies to develop competitive capability in various scales

As for Vietnam tourism, although there has been active transformation and growth, Vietnam tourism in general and ThuaThien Hue tourism (Hue tourism) has not developed in line with its potential Tourism products are not attractive and not characterized The attraction and image of Hue tourist destination are still unclear to tourirts (BùiThịTám,

2010, TrầnThịNgọcLiên, 2013) Statistics of Department of Tourism showed that, staying days on average at Thua Thien Hue during 2013-2017 declined from 2.01 day/pax(2013) to1.8 day/ pax (2017), while nearby destinations like Da Nang and Hoi An had the growth This brings forward a big question of competitive capability ofThừaThiênHuếtourist destination As a prominent location of tourism resources and early developed in Vietnam and Central Vietnam (BùiThị Támvà Mai Lệ Quyên, 2012; Lê Thị Ngọc Anh, 2018), ThừaThiênHuế tourism has not seen any outstanding steps to define its pioneering destination in the area

So far, some studies focused on the capability of attracting, destination image and competitive capability implemented in Central area such as stuties made byBùiThịTám, 2010; Thái Thanh Hà, 2010, NguyễnThịBíchThủy, 2013 However, these studies are conducted along with specific approaches with exploratory study over detailed aspects of competitive capability Therefore, recommendations for further research focus on

Decision no 1622/QĐ-UBND dated 26/8/2013 by Thue Thien Hue Provincial People’s Committee stated: “Develop Thua Thien Hue tourism in a fast, sustainable, quality assurance way with competitiveness, conservation and mobilization of cultural heritage” This shows the interest and urgency of the assessment of competitive capability of Hue tourism to achieve the target of “Focus on developing tourism into leading enonomy industry, by 2020, to improve Thua Thien Hue to become the leading destination in the region; by 2030, to build Thua Thien Hue into an equal destination with other international city of cultural heritage”

From those facts, the study of competitive capability of Hue tourist destination to clarify the actual status of development and competitive capability, as well as factors impacting on competitive capability, to recommend policies and solutions to improve competitive capability of Hue tourist destination is essential Therefore, the dissertation of

“A study of tourist destination competitiveness in Thua Thien Hue, Viet Nam”is

scientifically meaningful to contribute to the development of competitiveness of Thua Thien Hue tourism, and the socio-economic development of the province, the tourism of the Central in the coming time

3 Research target and scope

3.2 Research scope

To solve these issues and reach the study’s target, the study scope includes:

• Research content: The dissertation approaches the study of competitiveness of

local tourist destination – which is a specific provinve/city, without any study of evaluating competitiveness of the destination in general at macro level (national, regional…) or at micro level (town, hamlet, tourism center…), or to compare among competitiveness of

industry, nation or business level Then, main research content covers:

- Clarify definitions of destination and levels of destinations, tourist destination competitiveness, theoretical and methodology issues of evaluating tourist destination competitiveness

- Select, design model and operationalize systems of synthesic variables, detailed variables to evaluate competitiveness of tourist destination in accordance with conditions and context of local tourist destination

- Introduce actual status of management, development of Thua Thien Hue tourist destination and build competitiveness of Thua Thien Hue tourist destination

- Analyze and evaluate contributing factors of competitiveness of Thua Thien Hue tourist destination

- Study directions, solutions and policies to improve competitiveness of Thua Thien Hue tourist destination

- In terms of space: With above-mentioned target and scope, the dissertation focuses

on Thua Thien Hue tourism (mentioned as Hue in this dissertation, also compatible with

usual names used in advertising strategy of Thua Thien Hue tourist destination) The

selection of Hue destination is based on following criteria:

- Role, location and phase of development of Hue tourist destination in Central

Vietnam tourism

- Importance and compatibility with tourism development planning and strategy of

the local in particular and of Thua Thien Hue tourism in general

- Inheritability and comparison with previous studies of evaluating competitiveness

of tourist destination This is an important factor in validation study of theoretical

framework

- In terms of definition, competitiveness of a destination is evaluated on contributing factors of competitive factors of that destination Therefore, in this study, the choice of two nearby destinations which are Da Nang and QuangNam (Hoi An) – are

destinations to share market with Hue destination, also the cooperative destination in the effort to develop regional destination – is just to provide reference information, comparable and to propose policies of destination management The analysis of these two destinations

are out of the target and scope of this research

• In terms of time:

- Secondary data of tourist destination development is accumulated for the period of

2012-2017

- Directions and solutions to improve competitive capability ofHuếtourist

destination are analyzed and proposed for the period up to 2020

4 Dissertation’s findings

In the last two decades, tourist destination competitiveness is the matter of interest of policy makers of tourist destination management and development, travel and tourism business, and other related researchers There have been various related studies to build theoretical framework and to apply in competitive capability of tourist destination at different destination levels However, due to multidimension and complexit of the definition of competitiveness, most of studies limits at some evaluating aspects of competitiveness, except for some studies of national destination competitiveness This asserts scientific and factual significance of studies of local destination’s competitiveness evaluation Therefore, when conducting defined targets, this study has following findings:

• In terms of theory:

Firstly, the dissertation proposes theoretical framework to evaluate competitiveness

of local destination with the system of specific measured variables in line with conditions of resources, management and development characters of destination at each level To emphasize the necessity and suitability of further research to complete theoretical framework to evaluate competitiveness of tourist destination in various levels

Secondly, unlike other previous studies which focused on subjective selection and

analysis of the researchers to define evaluating framework of tourist destination’s competitiveness, this is one of the first few studies to apply Delphi to search for consensus

in building the framework and elaborate measured variables of destination competitiveness Therefore, proposed model in this study serves the objectiveness in science This is significant contribution in terms of theory, the result of proposed model is the useful reference for related researchers

Thirdly, previous studies used Exloratory Factor Analysis (EFA) so the results are of

exploratory level, there has not been any study to define and validate the suitability of the model in actual application Especially, with big number of variables and their complexity, it

is necessary to have a study to validate contributing factors of tourist destination competitiveness In this study, with big sample, the combination of Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis, that limitation is solved On that basis, the evaluation fo competitiveness does not limit at analyzing each individual factor, but also to

analyze and show the interactivity impact among factors and to advise related management solutions

• In terms of practice:

Firstly, related to institution and management, provincial level is the highest level to

authorize the planning and organizing stategy, plans of local tourism development Therefore, the study of competitiveness of local destination (in detail, the provincial level, centrally-governed cities) will provide suitable and useful scientific database to build and

realize strategies and plans of tourist destination development

Secondly, this is the first speacialized study into evaluating competitiveness of Thua

Thien Hue destination accessed from the provider (expert, managers and enterprises), the usage of evaluation model of competitiveness is built on objective scientific ground, this study provides viable information of contributing factors of competitiveness of Thua Thien Hue destination, strengths, weakness compared to competitors Then, it helps policy makers

of management and development strategy of Thua Thien Hue tourism destination with suitable policies to enhance competitiveness of Thua Thien Hue destination

Thirdly, solutions and management policies based on objective research results

would help managers and enterprises with directions and specific solutions in developing products and advertising in line with competitive advantage and comparative advantage of Hue destination, responding better to market demand, increasing toursist satisfaction, developing Thua Thien Hue tourism in a sustainable manne

PART II RESEARCH CONTENT

CHAPTER 1 RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Tourist destination competitiveness is matter of interest in recent decades when global tourism leaps rapidly and tourism market competition is accelerating Therefore, studies of evaluating competitiveness of tourist destination is one of important research areas to complete theoretical framework, operationalize research variables and to validate proposed models

With defined objectives, the dissertation focuses to clarify basic definitions in the study of evaluating destination competitiveness as well as destination’s attraction ability, image, competitive advantage, competitive capability and their connection

Competitiveness of a tourist destination is a complex and multidimensional definition due to tourism’s diversification A competitive tourist destination is defined to have the ability to create and provide products and services with outstanding quality over other destinations in order to increase tourism market share and to preserve and maintain tourism resources

The review of studies evaluating competitive capability of tourist destination, combined with Report of competitive capability of tourist destination by WEF shows that popular contributing factors of competitive capability of tourist destination include:

• Core tourism resources and attractive tourism spots

• Policies and plans to manage and develop destinations

• Factors of quality and exaggeration

Besides, attraction ability of the destination and destination image are definitions related to the evaluation of competitive capability of tourist destination One of the important factors which create competitive capability of the destination is the attraction ability of the destination However, in fact, many people are confused between attraction ability and competitive capability of the destination

Attraction ability of tourist destination is “reflection of perception, faith, and idea each individual possesses in the ability to satisfy customers of the destination connected with their specific travel demand”, and the attraction ability is assessed by the demand side, while competitive capability is assessed by the provider side

As for destination image, it is an important factor in heighten attraction ability and competitive capability of the destination Destination image is understook to be the combination of notions, faith, impression and awareness of each individual of the tourism spot, which is one of basic factors to impact on decision making of tourist over destination selection

On the basic of synthesize definitions of competitive capability of the destination, this chapter generalize systematically evaluation models of competitive capability of destinations at national level, to propose to local destinations, together with approach method and evaluation of competitive capability of tourist destination

Review of outstanding international researches of tourist destination competitiveness shows that:

In terms of approach, studies have differencies in approach such as:

- Approach based on competitive advantage, industry structure, environment commitment such as Hassan 2000

- Approach based on destination’s success: tourism impact on destination, environment commitment such as Yoon, 2000; Poon, 1993

- Price competition such as Dwyer et al., 2000, 2002

In terms of evaluation and analysis method, survey target in studies is survey conducted from provider side, with Likert’s scale; EFA method; statistics-descriptive method, comparative method

As for national related studies, the review shows that studies use index in the

system of evaluation index over competitive capability by WEF to analyze and evaluate competitive capability of tourist destination, or to use evaluation criteria of competitive capability at national level and provincial level, to combine with index system of evaluating travel and tourism competitive capability by WEF, or to apply the model of Crouch and Richie to assess competitive capability of the destination Approach from the demand side

in some studies into tourists by Thai Thanh Ha, 2010; Nguyen Thi Le Huong, 2014 As for evaluation and analysis method: to use Likert’s scale; analysis method: statistics-descriptive method (Nguyen Anh Tuan, 2010); Exploratory Factor Analysis

National and international studies may be different in approaches but they all emphasize 2 factors: resource and resource management and uniform in systemization, selection constructs reflecting competitive capability (1- resource; 2 –supporting resource; 3- destination management; 4- micro environment; 5- macro environment; và 6- other broadening factors)

In empirical study, there are 3 groups:

First group: case studies to analyze strengths and weaknesses of destinations based

on Porter model

Second group: studies to use a survey tool to measure competitive capability of the destination and apply in national destination, territory while there are only a few studies of evaluation at local/regional destination

Third group: studies to focus on specific aspects of competitive capability such as price competition

Theoretical framework of competitive capability of national and local destinations

Although there are lots of approaches, there are only a few studies to propose theoretical framework to measure competitive capability of a destination 3 outstanding models to evaluate competitive capability of tourism destination are as follows:

The first one is the model by Crouch and Richie (1993, 1999, 2003), this is regarded

as the complete model to evaluate competitive capability of the destination and is referred to the most because it shows core factors of tourism Ritchie and Crouch’s model is different from and more advanced than other models When other models focus mostly on specific product or destination image (Schroeder, 1996; Formica, 2001), Ritchie and Crouch’s model, though developed on the basic of competitive theoretical framework by Porter, it considers all specific factors and related factors According to the two authors, competitiveness of the destination is defined by 5 main factors: (i) core resources and attracting factors; (ii) supporting factors and resource; (iii) destination management; (iv) destination development, planning and policy; (v) broadening factors

The second one is the model by Dwyer and Kim (2003), it basically shows core factors like the model by Crouch and Richie but factors are modelized more neatly The decisive factor of competitive capability includes inheritance resource, recreate resource, supporting factor, destination management, actual conditions and needs According to authors, socioi-economic prosperity is the final result of tourism competitive capability

The third one is the model by Vengesayi (2003), core factors of the model are similar with the model by Crouch and Richie but it is modelized in a simpler way In the model of TDCA - Tourist Destination Competitiveness and Attractiveness, competitive capability is assessed based on 4 main factors: (i) resources and activities, (ii) experimental environment, (iii) supporting services, and (iv) communication/ advertisement

Those are study models as the ground to propose evaluation model of competitiveness of Hue destination

CHAPTER 2 CHARACTERISTICS OF RESEARCH LOCATION AND METHOD

2.1 Characteristics of research location

Hue is renowned for one of localities of diversified tourism resource with 5 world heritages In the last two decades, Hue tourism keeps steady pace in total number of tourist and revenue, where is one of the must-travel-to destinations for national and international tourists However, compared to nearly localities like Đa Nang and Hoi An, Hue tourism still has slower pace, the average staying day is much lower and is still not improved

of competitive capability of Huế destination are clarified

2.2.1 Design research procedure

Competitive capability of tourist destination is a complex definition, especially when it is applied in each condition of management and development of each locality and each nation The design of scientific research procedure is one of the first conditions to ensure the objectivity of research activity In terms of the nature, the evaluation of competitive capability of toursit destination demands the multidisciplinary approach and on the systematical approach Therefore, the combination of research methodologies is one of the important factors to ensure pre-defined research activities

2.2.2 Data accumulation and analysis method

2.2.2.1 Data source

To realize defined objectives, primary and secondary data are collected by combining qualitative and quantitative methods

2.2.2.2 Qualitative research method

To collect information and ideas from experts in terms of constructs and the way to operationalize them into variables, as well as the connection between them, some qualitative research is combined to apply in this study, including: in-depth interview, focus group and Delphi method

This is an important step to build and complete conceptual framework to ensure scientifically plausibility