Determinants of Tourism Destination Competitiveness in Selected Latin American Countries: An Approach from the Gravity Model

The competitiveness of tourist destinations has been widely studied considering various units of analysis and measurement instruments. However, studies using bilateral data through the gravity model are relatively scarce. Therefore, this research analyzes, through this instrument, the effects of macroeconomic, infrastructure and tourism industry variables on destination competitiveness for 19 selected Latin American countries from a comparative and expanded perspective. The results are consistent with the literature on infrastructure and industry-specific variables. At the same time, caution must be taken when interpreting the macroeconomic results, due to the absence of data specifically related to the sector and because of the dissimilar effects that may occur in the short, medium, and long term. Internet access and the availability of places declared as world heritage sites are attractive to tourists and therefore could constitute a prioritization in public policies.