Assessing tourism destination competitiveness: the case of Kazakhstan

Tourism competitiveness is important for destinations to attract tourists and outshine competing destinations by providing high-quality, innovative tourism services and attractions while ensuring available resources are used efficiently but sustainably. The purpose of this research is to develop tourism competitiveness indices, considering both internal and external factors, including quantitative and qualitative methods that are suitable for emerging tourist destinations. A range of tourism stakeholders was sampled including tourism business owners and managers in various sectors, public administrators, and academics. They were asked to nominate competitiveness indicators. These indicators were then ranked and prioritized to provide a weighted score of competitiveness for the destination as well as tourism services. We apply this method of assessing tourism destination competitiveness to Kazakhstan. An assessment of the destination competitiveness of Kazakhstan shows that the natural environment is an area of competitive advantage followed by tourism policy while Kazakhstan is least competitive in the ability to ensure quality tourism services, on indicators such as pricing, language knowledge of tourism employees, and professionalism of tourism employees. The method allows academics, industry, and policymakers to easily interpret the indicators and factors that contribute to the quality and competitiveness of tourism services at the macro and micro levels.