The price competitiveness map of Asian travel and tourism destinations

Abstract

[eng] This paper presents a map of findings and conclusions from an analysis of the price competitiveness of Asian tourism destinations. Taiwan, China will be used as an origin region to establish main resource markets and main Asian competitors in this analysis according to the 2017 Annual Survey Report on Visitors Expenditure and Trends in Taiwan Summary. The main source markets will be collected based on official tourism statistics, which exceed 80% inbound tourists of Taiwan. Correspondingly, the main Asian competitors of Taiwan will be collected reply on official inbound tourist survey of Taiwan, China. As a result, the price competitiveness indices in 2011 and 2017 of Japan, Mainland China, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand will be developed and compared through the collection of the relative price level of a bundle of tourism products and services. The higher the price competitiveness index, the cheaper the destinations and that means more price competitive of destinations. The final results will be interpreted by maps based on the price competitiveness indices. After that, the inflation rate and labor costs will be analyzed as two important factors which can influence the destinations’ price competition. On the whole, the results show that Thailand had the highest price competitiveness indices in 2011 and 2017, which means Thailand was the most price competitive destination in 2011 and 2017. In addition, Taiwan can be judged as a price-competitive destination based on the results. Furthermore, the price competitiveness indices of various destinations had changed moderately from 2011 to 2017, which can be explained to a certain extent by the inflation rate and labour costs.