Un'analisi statistica della competitività turistica

In the current competitive environment, the knowledge of the factors that affect the destination competitiveness has become essential. This helps to enhance the strengths and to reduce the weaknesses and, more in general, to improve the entire destination attractiveness. In tourism literature the debate about competitiveness has focused on the strategic factors that can influence the destination performance and the study of models and tools that are able to "measure" the competitiveness level. All models highlight the complexity incorporated in the concept of competitiveness, and the presence of numerous factors that must be analyzed to assess, measure and manage the competitiveness of a destination. The main goal of this thesis is an assessment of the competitiveness of Italian regions using a statistical approach that combines factorial methods, for reducing of the large dataset into a limited number of representative indicators, and classification methods, for grouping the regions on the basis of the obtained indicators. The application of fuzzy clustering further enriches the research. Given the complexity of the data analyzed, this method can effectively treat the uncertainty internal to the data. Through the fuzzy cluster a single region is attributed to each group with a given degree of membership. The resulting classification permits not only to show how they aggregate units, but is able to quantify the membership of a region to a cluster. From leading country in the ranking of tourism, today Italy suffers so that it is losing competitiveness to the older competitors as well to new entrants. Analyzing the factors that determine the competitive ability of a destination becomes a fundamental exercise for the researcher but also for policy-makers. In fact, it provides a set of indicators that permits to develop a more coherent and effective strategy. Because of the strong 'delay' of Italy compared to its other traditional and emerging competitors, it’s necessary to analyze how the low level of competitiveness at national level manifest itself at regional level. The results of the research highlight an heterogeneous regional scenario showing some critical elements but, at the same time, some quantitative and especially qualitative prospects.