Destination competitiveness and competitiveness indicators: Illustration of the Portuguese reality

The gradual importance devoted to policies focused on new challenges faced locally by destinations, in addition to those policies providing awareness about local stakeholders and their needs, is inseparable from the general knowledge about the potentialities of the surrounding environment, as well as the inevitability of measuring results and impacts (Lozano-Oyola, Blancas, & Caballero, 2012). For these reasons, this paper intends to contribute to the understanding of tourism destination competitiveness, specifically how it can be evaluated, in which indicators it is based on, and what is the open access information available in Portugal. Data resulted from in-depth research in the main Portuguese official open access databases, collected between May and June 2014. Results show that little attention has been given to the operationalisation of strategic and comprehensive information to facilitate tourism development in Portugal or, at least, little attention has been given to ease its access.