Tourism Performance as a Measure of Tourism Competitiveness in Asia‐Pacific: Exploring the Determinant Effect of Level of Globalization

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the effect of globalization on tourism competitiveness in the Asia‐Pacific area. To achieve this objective, a tourism competitiveness indicator has been constructed through the information published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), in which the main explanatory variables of tourism performance are merged through the data envelopment analysis model. This is a methodological novelty compared to studies that observe this phenomenon by means of the accumulation of tourism resources. An analysis of the variables that condition tourism competitiveness is subsequently carried out, key among which is the inclusion of economic, social and political globalization indicators published by the Swiss Economic Institute, together with a group of tourism and socioeconomic context variables. Results reveal an area of great heterogeneity in terms of tourism competitiveness, where the level of globalization is a significant factor, favouring economically globalized destinations and disadvantaging those that are more socially integrated.