Despite the current international financial crisis, the tourism sector has managed to maintain high levels of activity. Against a backdrop of weak demand and stiff competition, efficiency has come to the fore as a key issue, especially in consolidated markets, such as Spain, where hopes that the sector will lead the way to economic recovery contrast with statements from the Competitiveness Monitor of the World Travel & Tourism Council that Spain is losing its competitiveness. In this article, the two-stage Simar and Wilson procedure is used to estimate the effect of a group of nine environmental factors on robust data envelopment analysis (DEA) estimates which act as a proxy of destination competitiveness for the Spanish autonomous communities (or regions) between 2002 and 2010. A brief discussion in terms of D- and E-attraction and cluster D-attraction is also included. The article contributes to the destination industry literature by adopting an approach that has not hitherto been applied to Spain.
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