Formative-reflective scheme for the assessment of tourism destination competitiveness: an analysis of Italian municipalities

In this article, we propose a formative-reflective scheme for the assessment of Tourism Destination Competitiveness (TDC) based on a combined use of Partial Least Squares-Path Modelling (PLS-PM) and the method recently proposed by Fattore, Pelagatti, and Vittadini (FPV). TDC is conceived as a construct reflecting the tourism performance of a destination, and several determinants are considered, including endowed resources, created resources, and supporting factors. The proposed scheme is applied to a case study on 1575 Italian municipalities for which the Italian National Institute of Statistics released data on tourist flows. Our contribution is innovative for three aspects: (i) the consistency of the formative-reflective scheme for TDC assessment is discussed on a theoretical basis; (ii) an empirical comparison between PLS-PM and the FPV method is performed; (iii) data with higher granularity than most studies on TDC assessment are employed. Our findings highlight that endowed resources are the primary driver of TDC, followed by created resources and supporting factors, and emphasize that the best ranked destinations are big cities with a multifaceted tourism alongside sea and mountain destinations with cultural attractions.