Tourist Clusters, Destinations and Competitiveness Theoretical issues and empirical evidences Routledge Advances in Regional Economics, Science and Policy Series

Tourism has become one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the world economy. Increasingly, research on tourism destinations has been at the centre of debates concerning destination competitiveness, governance, policies and destination management and marketing.

This book investigates tourist destinations from two different perspectives. First, it approaches destinations using the concept of tourist clusters and investigates their role in competitiveness and firm performances. The second perspective studies the development of models of competitiveness and governance. It also develops an international benchmarking system of 15-EU countries, with an additional focus on Italy, UK and United States.

The book will appeal to academics, scholars and practitioners in tourism studies, management, urban and regional studies and economic geography, etc.

1. A bibliometric analysis on tourist destinations research: Focus on destination management and tourist cluster 2. Destination management and competitiveness: Literature review and a destination competitiveness analysis 3. The impact of related variety on tourist destinations: An analysis of tourist firms clustering 4. Defining tourist clusters in Europe: A micro-level data approach 5. Do tourist clusters boost hotels’ performance?: Resilience in a crisis period in Italy 6. How does concentration affect hotels’ performance?: An empirical study of US panel data 7.Tourism, creativity and entrepreneurship: New firm formation in Tuscany 8. The experience-related economy in the UK

Francesco Capone is Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, Italy.