The analysis of effective factors on competitive advantage of Shiraz City as tourism destination

The subject of competition started when Adam Smith published his well-known book titled as ‘Wealth of nations’. Defining competition is a difficult task since the competition is a relative and multidimensional concept and such difficulty is revealed further when we tend to measure competition. By the end of 1980, there was no theoretical framework for analysis, maintenance, and improvement of competition in a country or industry and therefore competition was analysed economically by means of various criteria. A definition, which has been proposed by World Economic Forum (WEF) about tourism, competition is as follows: It comprises of factors and policies make a country attractive for developing in traveling and tourism sector (WEF, 2008). Each of Porter (1980), Gilbert (1984), and Poon (1993) have presented strategies regarding tourism destination competition but unlike other models which have been further focused on tourism product and image of destination, Crouch and Ritchie (1999) model is more comprehensive with adding elements such as destination management, supporting factors, qualifying and amplifying determinants than other factors (core sources and attractions). The present article is aimed at exploring and order preference of effective factors on competitive advantage of Shiraz City by means of Crouch and Ritchie Model. This investigation has been carried out by survey and with distribution of questionnaire as a tool among experts and specialists in tourism field within time range (2013–2014). The integration sampling type was of snowball and judgmental techniques and sample size was determined as 50 for questionnaire about importance coefficients and 48 for questionnaire regarding status of branches in the region. The research results signify that among 5 aforesaid parameters in Crouch and Ritchie model, the variables of core sources and attractions, supporting factors and sources, destination policy, planning, and development, qualifying and amplifying determinants, and management destination are ranked based on their priorities respectively. Similarly, Shiraz city possesses strong points in terms of factors including regional culture and history (historical monuments and heritage, customs and rites, and traditional arts etc.), climate, natural landscapes and gardens, shopping centres and diversified commercial activities in Shiraz city etc. and also it suffers from weak points in some factors including management of visitors, crisis management, recreational centres, cooperation among public and private sectors and the like.