Tourism Destination Competitiveness: An Importance-Performance Analysis of Yazd and Shiraz

Keeping up with global trends and gaining competitive advantage requires that tourism destinations determine their strategies based on the recognition of the importance of their competitive features and performance. In the present study, the IPA approach was used to assess the importance of various activities for gaining competitive advantage in destination management and the performance of two destinations of Yazd and Shiraz. The results showed that, from experts view, in both destinations, about half of the criteria with low importance and poor performance were in the lowest priorities for allocating resources. Based on the average points of importance in Yazd, the dimensions of "crisis management", "marketing", "climate change", "tourism and hospitality education", "sustainable development" and "product development and innovation" and in the city of Shiraz dimensions of "climate change", "marketing", "crisis management", "sustainable development", "product development and innovation", and "tourism and hospitality education" were identified from the most important to the least important aspects of destination competitiveness, respectively.