Measuring business tourism destination competitiveness: The case of Dublin, Ireland

Business tourism has the potential to generate substantial economic returns and thus, many cities have invested in venues and facilities to attract and satisfy business tourists. In Dublin, emphasis has been placed on this growing, high-value industry and the development of a new purpose-built Convention Centre in the city presents an opportunity for Dublin to make advances in the business tourism market. Additionally, business tourism has been targeted as a priority for the National Tourism Development Authority, Fáilte Ireland, and Dublin Regional Tourism Authority. Indeed, it is anticipated that through promotion and a more active industry group, Dublin will have the potential to emerge as a leading business tourism destination. Dublin’s competitiveness is a major issue given the importance of business tourism for the city. However, Dublin’s competitiveness versus other business tourism destinations has been largely unexplored. Furthermore, previous research in the area of destination competitiveness has paid little attention to business tourism destinations. Given the gap in the existing literature, the study seeks firstly to develop an appropriate methodological framework for measuring business tourism destination competitiveness and secondly, to apply this model to evaluate Dublin’s competitiveness. The paper argues that importance-performance analysis can be used to explore the importance of a range of destination attributes and the destination’s competitiveness on each attribute. The paper discusses the proposed methodology and practical applications of the study