A global study by THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM (WEF) has found that Spain has the most competitive tourism industry in the world.
After Spain, the best performing nations are France, Germany, United States, Great Britain, Switzerland , Australia, Italy, Japan and Canada. The report takes into account 90 individual indicators such as a destinations natural and cultural resources, its health and hygiene conditions, its price competitiveness, its security levels, its travel infrastructure and its adaptation to new technologies.
Spain scores top marks for its cultural resources, with beautiful heritage sites throughout the country. The report also notes that Spain is the 3 rd most visited country in the world with around 60.6 million tourists annually. And thanks to an influx of tourists from emerging markets such as China, Korea, Brazil and Mexico, growth prospects are on the up.
The comprehensive study also gave Spain an overall score of 5.31 out of 7, a grade that is broken down into four major areas; its travel and tourism policy, infrastructure, the natural and cultural resources and environment. “With beautiful heritage sites throughout the country, it achieved top marks for its cultural resources, and scored highly for business travellers with a significant number of international conferences,” the report stated. “It has ranked 4 th for online searches for entertainment – restaurants and attractions – as well as prioritization of the travel and tourism industry (6 th ) and infrastructure for service tourism (4 th ). Of the four areas, Spain did its best in infrastructure, scoring 5.68 out of 7. Its second placing was in natural and cultural resources, driven among other things by its wealth of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and sports facilities.
The worst scoring was for its travel and tourism policy 4.66 out of 7, principally as a result of price competitiveness. Other economies performed worse on this point, however allowing Spain to remain near the stop of the charts. Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia and Tunisia offered the best prices. In the previous 2013 edition, Spain ranked fourth while Switzerland held the top place. The methodology this year has been changed to include more variables and to incorporate new data. The new system 'optimizes the allocation of variables to form a cleaner structure’, the report explains.
