Application of Fuzzy Benchmarking Approach for Strategic Planning of Tourism Destination

The quality of strategic planning and resulting strategies is a key factor for the competitiveness of tourism destinations. Even though this is not a typical field where benchmarking methods are widely used, such an approach can be successfully applied. This article drafts a methodology for strategic benchmarking based on a quality evaluation of development strategies in tourism destinations. These strategies are evaluated by key regional stakeholders. The evaluation of fifteen selected strategies of the Czech, Slovak, and British regions has been made by an on-line application incorporating carefully defined criteria designed to operate with fuzzy data. The best strategies-as an etalon of good practice-are selected by the means of the fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. The Region of Vysocina was selected for realization of the benchmarking gap analysis towards all strategies from the etalon with the aim to identify the opportunities for quality enhancement and corresponding good practices.