Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

 
INTRODUCTION 
The tourist destination is the central component of the functioning tourism system. Studies have indicated 
that tourists and their needs stand as the ultimate driving force which influences the competition and 
competitiveness in the tourism destination (Ritchie and Crouch, 2001b, 2003). To achieve competitive advantages 
for a certain tourism destination, the destination must ensure that its overall attractiveness and the tourist experience 
offered are superior to the visitor’s alternative destinations (Dwyer et al., 2004; Dwyer and Kim, 2003). Therefore, 
destinations eventually compete on the quality of tourism experience offered to visitors. In a highly competitive 
tourism destination market, tourists’ experiences and their opinions should be understood in order to enhance the 
performance of destination products and promote destination development strategies.
From the tourists’ perspective, a quality tourism experience could be considered as the major contributing 
factor to their perception of the competitiveness of a specific destination and would influence their decision-making, 
image, and future behavioral intention toward the destination. Consequently, there is an intimate link between the 
destination competitiveness and the quality of tourism experience and there is a need to examine this issue from the 
tourists’ perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the nature of the relationship and 
empirically test the magnitude of the connection between the two concepts. The major research hypothesis proposed 
in this study is: the quality of tourism experience and perceived destination competitiveness share a common 
variance.