Measuring the comparative advantage of camping businesses: A multicriteria sorting methodology

The adoption of appropriate strategies is an obligation for firms to gain in competitiveness. This paper develops a camping comparative advantage measure methodology by composing an operational definition of this concept and by implementing an assessment method. The paper first undertakes a literature review concerning competitiveness and performance measurement in tourism and hospitality. Secondly, it develops a multi-criteria framework to evaluate comparative advantage of camping businesses. This framework is then applied to French firms by using the ELECTRE TRI methodology. The article has management implications in relation to the usefulness of the proposed methodology to real-world situations. Its results have theoretical significances: the paper extends the literature regarding hospitality firms’ competitiveness and specifies criteria concerning camping businesses advantage against competitors. Findings reveal three homogeneous categories. To ensure the relevance of these categories, the investment strategies and then the camping manager feedbacks are detailed. In terms of limitations, the adopted approach recalls to an accumulation of resources, and this does not automatically equate to competitiveness as exposed the resource quality or capabilities to manage these large number of resources.