Competitiveness, Intelligence and Sustainability in Consolidated Destinations: What We Know and Pending Research Challenges

Competitiveness, sustainability and innovation have been studied by the tourism literature at least since the 1990s. In spite of the advances made in the comprehension of these concepts, the dynamic nature of the industry continually generates new practical challenges for the public and private agents of the sector and scientific challenges for tourism researchers. Currently, globalization and digital progress, the emergence of new marketing platforms, the increased saturation of certain destinations and the COVID-19 pandemic are significantly affecting the competitiveness and sustainability of tourism activity. This calls for a scientific review of what we know about the competitiveness and sustainability of the sector and an analysis of its feasibility in this new competitive environment that is constantly and intensely transforming, even more so in the post-COVID19 era. The objective of this article is to conceptually analyze the state of this question, using Spain as a case study, as it has been the global leader in tourism competitiveness in recent years. The high level of consolidation of the Spanish tourism sector enables us to make a more in-depth analysis of the implications of these phenomena and to extract practical lessons for destinations that are in the more initial phases of their life cycles.