The Tax Competitiveness of Tourism Enterprises in an International Context

Competitiveness at the micro level of individual enterprises is an important issue for the national economy, but the international competitiveness of enterprises represents a direct expression of the state’s superiority. The escalating growth of competition is now noticeable in many sectors, with each sector simultaneously facing diff erent threats. Tourism is a specific sector with prices that are largely dependent on labour costs and other tax burdens. At the same time, this sector features the lowest wage level in the Czech Republic. The present work is focused on analysing the most important types of taxes in the tourism sector in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria and their impact on the international competitiveness of enterprises. The countries were selected based on their demographic and geographical similarities. The most important tax in this regard is value added tax (VAT), which has a direct impact on the final price of goods and services consumed by tourists. The total level of direct tax on tourist consumption is calculated as the weighted average of VAT rates for each selected country. Entities conducting business in hotel and catering face a high share of labour costs relative to the cost of other capital that can also be transferred to tourists through higher prices. The aim of this contribution is to provide a ranking of selected countries according to the tax burden directly imposed on tourism consumption and to determine the relative tax competitiveness of the Czech Republic as a tourist destination for 2017