Opinions on the main elements to be considered in tourism potential assessment models

Abstract

The proper assessment of the tourism potential is an essential condition for choosing the most appropriate development directions for tourism destinations. The reference literature presents several options for the assessment of the tourism potential, individualized depending on the importance given to elements being considered in the assessment models. The key problem in grounding a potential assessment method in tourism is to determine the main factors to be considered and the share due to each one, the distribution schemes of the scores corresponding to different factors, respectively. This paper brings forward an updated version of a potential assessment model in tourism, proposed in 2005, in line with the transformations in the general environment of tourism destinations (political and legal environment, socio-cultural environment, economic and technological environment), which occurred during the 11 years passed since the initial presentation of the model.