MCDA for evaluating the competitiveness of tourist destinations in Albania

Abstract

The global economy is changing at a great pace, and the tourism industry cannot be different in this regard. It needs to change and improve constantly to maintain competitiveness in the international market. The competitive ability of any tourism service depends on its capacity to innovate, but only a few companies are able to do this with some consistency and coherence, improving their competitive advantage. The purpose of this article is to analyse some popular tourist destinations in Albania and compare and rank them from the best to the worst regarding their performance and the quality of their services. An important aspect of assessing competitiveness is defining indicators and factors according to a multi-criteria decision making approach. A suitable framework will rank the tourism destinations according to their competitiveness based on the selected indicators and criteria defined by the decision-makers. The use of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is motivated by the fact that real-world decision-making problems have become much more complex and multi-factorial and cannot be accurately measured using only one dimensional approaches. Defining such criteria would help in the overall assessment of the competitiveness of tourism services in Albania and would help in attracting new visitors and investors.