**2. Tourism competitiveness: measurement indicators**

Since the last decade of the twentieth century, an increasing number of researchers have focused on knowing the causes that make a geographical enclave become a preferred tourist destination above others, and the reasons for their greater or lesser tourist attraction potential. In the past decade of the present century, the proposals have been focused on producing models that measure, by means of a specific empirical methodology, the competitiveness of the tourism destinations [1–4].

In agreement with [5], there are three main reasons why the mentioned scientific interest has been inspired: firstly, the increasing importance that the tourism sector has in the regional, national and global economies; secondly, the increasing competition between tourism destinations, although they have hardly changed over the years [13,14]; and finally, the benefits of tourism for the economies seem to be clear in the short term, but their effects in the long term do not appear to be as great, or at least there is insufficient empirical evidence that supports it [15–17].

The first section of this chapter reviews the conceptual models of tourism competitiveness. This is followed with an examination of the empirical studies developed to date, highlighting the main existing indicators on tourism competitiveness that have come to be used at the international level, putting emphasis on the applied methodology.
