With the rise of social media and online review platforms, understanding the rapidly evolving factors that influence the competitiveness of destination has become transparent for tourism authorities aiming to attract and retain visitors. Thanks to a pioneering framework for assessing the evolution of destination competitiveness developed by Dr Emily Chen, Dr Jie Wu and Professor Dan Wang of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), and Professor Bela Stantic of the School of Information and Communication Technology at Griffith University, destination managers now have new insights into strategies for enhancing destination competitiveness and tourist satisfaction.

In the constantly evolving field of tourism management, the authors begin, destination competitiveness is crucial in attracting tourists and driving tourism expenditure. Destination competitiveness is defined as a destination’s capacity to attract and satisfy tourists compared with its competitors, and it relies on destination managers’ ability to derive effective strategies for strengthening business and identify and resolve product and service deficiencies.

By attracting tourist spending, competitive destinations can boost local revenue, create jobs and encourage investment in infrastructure and services. Considerable attention has been paid to how destinations can most effectively maintain their appeal and stay ahead of competitors as market conditions evolve. Yet existing models of destination competitiveness fall short in certain key respects.

The first is their inability to accommodate the evolving nature of destination competitiveness. Tourism is an extremely dynamic industry, the researchers explain, influenced by numerous external and internal factors, ranging from global economic conditions to social trends. Yet traditional models of destination competitiveness often take a static view, failing to account for these swiftly evolving factors. This limits their robustness in practical destination management, the authors warn.

More specifically, traditional assessments of destination competitiveness fail to address tourists’ changing preferences and behaviour, which are influenced by personal experiences and subjective perceptions. How tourists evaluate their experiences at the destination is important for the destination, the authors say, as positive experiences can be leveraged for effective marketing and building customer loyalty.

Fortunately, the rise of big data has opened avenues for much-needed real-time and nuanced analyses of the dynamics of destination competitiveness from the perspective of tourists. By analysing such data, say the authors, stakeholders can gauge the dynamic shifts in what tourists value most at any given time, allowing for more responsive and targeted management strategies.

The researchers’ first step was to collect data from the social media posts of mainland Chinese tourists visiting Hong Kong. Their intention was to shift the focus from external factors influencing destination competitiveness to the subjective experiences and perceptions of tourists, which are crucial drivers of a destination’s appeal and success.

To do so, they adapted a framework traditionally used to evaluate a company’s (or region’s) market attractiveness and competitive strength: the McKinsey Matrix. In this study, the researchers explain, market attractiveness was reinterpreted to reflect tourist sentiment, which serves as a direct indicator of a destination’s appeal based on the experiences and perceptions of tourists. Competitive strength was measured by the importance of various destination attributes as perceived by tourists.

The next task was to construct this matrix based on the collected social media data. The authors created a comprehensive timeline for mining destination attributes from 2018 to 2023.

The destination attributes that mattered most to mainland Chinese tourists were labelled as Food, Shopping, Attractions, Accommodation, Transportation, Culture & Art, and Cross-border Issues. The authors modelled these attributes in their dynamic matrix, whose nine quadrants each represented a different level of competitive positioning, from low to high. For example, core attributes were defined as those in which Hong Kong is consistently highly competitive, and fluctuating attributes were those that shifted positions in the matrix over time, indicating variability in tourist perceptions and competitiveness.

This model helped the authors to understand in which areas Hong Kong excels and which areas require strategic improvements. Food mattered the most across all periods, they report. In terms of destination competitiveness, however, the attributes all exhibited varying performance. Some, such as Shopping and Food, even transitioned to different competitive quadrants during the sample period. This illustrates why it is critical to capture and understand the dynamics of destination competitiveness at the attribute level, the researchers tell us.

Hong Kong’s tourist attractions and its culture and art were identified as core competitive attributes, indicating their outstanding performance in attracting mainland Chinese tourists. In contrast, local accommodation was an edge attribute, suggesting that improvement may be needed to enhance its contribution to the city’s overall destination competitiveness.

Interestingly, shopping- and food-related activities were classified as fluctuating attributes. Tourists’ dissatisfaction with food and dining options due to restrictive policies, lack of amenities like hot water, and outdated decor significantly detract from the dining experience, say the authors. Meanwhile, the attractiveness of shopping in Hong Kong – previously a major draw – is on the decline due to issues such as outdated payment systems and poor customer service.

Recognising that tourist preferences and needs evolve over time, say the authors, is crucial, as it supports the development of strategies that are responsive to changes in tourist behaviours and market conditions. Their findings will help the destination authorities understand which attributes of the city are most important to mainland Chinese tourists facilitating decision-making on which attributes should be prioritised for development.

For instance, as food, culture and art, and attractions are the three most important attributes for mainland Chinese tourists, the Hong Kong authorities should ensure that they continue to perform well. The finding that tourists are dissatisfied with shopping- and food-related activities should lead to strategies such as improving the environment and decor of restaurants, improving the attitude of shop staff, and promoting the use of electronic payments for shopping. The city should also aim to address cross-border issues that impair tourists’ travel experiences, such as delays in crossing the border and high currency exchange fees.

Although the authors focused on mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong, their dynamic framework can be applied to other destinations to understand the evolution of their competitiveness and generate specific measures to attract more tourists. The SHTM is proud to have pioneered this study, offering a novel monitoring and analysis tool that can provide the tourism industry with much-needed market intelligence.

Jinyan Chen, Jie Wu, Dan Wang and Bela Stantic (2025). Beyond Static Rankings: A Tourist Experience-driven Approach to Measure Destination Competitiveness. Tourism Management, Vol. 106, 105022.

About PolyU School of Hotel and Tourism Management

For more than four decades, the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has refined a distinctive vision of hospitality and tourism education and become a world-leading hotel and tourism school. Ranked No. 1 in the world in the “Hospitality and Tourism Management” category in ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2024 for the eighth consecutive year; placed No. 1 globally in the “Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services” category in the University Ranking by Academic Performance in 2023/2024 for seven years in a row; rated No. 1 in the world in the “Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism” subject area by the CWUR Rankings by Subject 2017; and ranked No. 1 in Asia in the “Hospitality and Leisure Management” subject area in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025, the SHTM is a symbol of excellence in the field, exemplifying its motto of Leading Hospitality and Tourism.

The School is driven by the need to serve its industry and academic communities through the advancement of education and dissemination of knowledge. With a strong international team of over 90 faculty members from 21 countries and regions around the world, the SHTM offers programmes at levels ranging from undergraduate to doctoral degrees. Through Hotel ICON, the School’s groundbreaking teaching and research hotel and a vital aspect of its paradigm-shifting approach to hospitality and tourism education, the SHTM is advancing teaching, learning and research, and inspiring a new generation of passionate, pioneering professionals to take their positions as leaders in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Website: https://www.polyu.edu.hk/shtm/.

Pauline Ngan
Senior Marketing Manager
+852 3400 2634
Hong Kong PolyU