First compiled in 2007, the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) measures “the set of factors and policies that enable the sustainable development of the Travel & Tourism sector, which in turn, contributes to the development and competitiveness of a country”.

The index has been developed in the context of the World Economic Forum’s Industry Partnership Programme for Aviation & Travel, and in close collaboration with our strategic design partner Strategy& and our data partners Bloom consulting, Deloitte, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the UNWTO and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). We have also received important feedback from industry partners including AirAsia, Ana Holdings, The Bahrain Economic Development Board, Embraer, Emirates, Etihad Airways, HNA Group, Hilton Worldwide, IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group), Jet Airways, Jumeirah Group, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Safran, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Swiss International Air Lines and Visa.

While some of the main drivers of T&T competitiveness remain unchanged, some other factors have become more relevant while measurements and data availability improves over time. Following the latest developments, the index’s methodology has evolved.

Still based on 14 pillars, this edition’s new methodology (see Box 1: Updating the TTCI Methodology) is organized into four subindexes:

The Enabling Environment subindex, which captures the general settings necessary for operating in a country:

1. Business Environment
2. Safety and Security
3. Health and Hygiene
4. Human Resources and Labour Market
5. ICT Readiness

The T&T Policy and Enabling Conditions subindex, which captures specific policies or strategic aspects that impact the T&T industry more directly:

6. Prioritization of Travel and Tourism
7. International Openness
8. Price Competitiveness
9. Environmental Sustainability

The Infrastructure subindex, which captures the availability and quality of physical infrastructure of each economy:

10. Air Transport Infrastructure
11. Ground and Port Infrastructure
12. Tourist Service Infrastructure

And the Natural and Cultural Resources subindex, which captures the principal “reasons to travel”:

13. Natural Resources
14. Cultural Resources and Business Travel

Figure 1 summarizes the structure of the index. Further details of its composition can be found in Appendix A.

Data and methodology

Two-thirds of the data set for the TTCI is statistical data from international organizations, with the remaining third based on survey data from the World Economic Forum’s annual Executive Opinion Survey, which is used to measure concepts that are qualitative in nature or for which internationally comparable statistics are not available for enough countries. Carried out among over 15,000 business executives and business leaders annually in all the economies included in our assessment, the survey represents a unique source of insight into critical qualitative aspects of T&T competitiveness. (see Browne et al., 2014 for more details). The sources of statistical data include Bloom Consulting, Deloitte, IATA, ICCA, ILO, ITU, IUCN, UNESCO, UN Statistics Division, UNWTO, WHO, World Bank/IFC Doing Business, World Bank’s World Development Indicators, World Resources Institute, World Road Statistics, WTO, WTTC, Yale-CIESIN Environmental Performance Index and Visa Analytics.

The overall TTCI score is computed through successive aggregations of scores, from the indicator level (i.e. the lowest, most disaggregated level) through the pillar and subindex levels, using a simple average (i.e. arithmetic mean) to combine the components. Scores on each indicator are first normalized onto a common scale.

Country Coverage

Six new economies included in the current edition were not analyzed in the previous Report: Gabon, Angola, Tunisia, Bhutan, Lao PDR and Myanmar. Five that were covered in the last report—Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Ecuador and Ukraine—are not covered this time because of insufficient data. The 141 economies covered this year, one more than in the 2013 Report, account for over 98% of world GDP.