The competitiveness of the\ud Uruguayan rural tourism sector\ud and its potential to attract\ud German tourists

摘要

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the competitiveness of the Uruguayan rural tourism\udsector against its main competitors from Argentina and Brazil, as perceived by Uruguayan\udstakeholders on the supply side. The paper will also evaluate the potential of Uruguay as a rural tourism\uddestination in attracting German tourists.\udDesign/methodology/approach – Two different questionnaires were administered, one to\udUruguayan rural tourism stakeholders and another one to potential German tourists in Germany.\udFindings – The findings indicate that the main strengths of Uruguayan rural tourism offer, compared to\udArgentina and Brazil, are the hospitality and friendliness of local people, the natural and cultural attractions\udand the country’s security and safety. Main weaknesses identified were the poor management of several\uddestination components that are key to create a successful tourism destination and poor management of the\ud“demand conditions” component of Dwyer and Kim’s (2003) integrated model.\udOriginality/value – There is very limited research done on the competitiveness of Uruguay as a rural\udtourist destination in attracting foreign tourists (Mackinnon et al., 2009). The objective of this study is\udto partially fill this gap by assessing how competitive Uruguayan rural tourism is and evaluating\udwhether Uruguay represents an attractive market for German tourists looking for agro tourism and\udfarm holiday destinations. The German market was chosen because it is one of the top\udtourist-generating countries and one of the biggest spenders in international tourism (The World\udTourism organization, 2010). Moreover, most tourists – from outside South America – selecting\udUruguay as a tourist destination come from Germany, USA and Australia (Peralta, 2012).