The global (macro) environment
The tourism system is an open system. That is, it is subject to many influences and pressures that arise outside the system itself. This is the global or macro environment. It consists of a vast array of phenomena which broadly impact all human activities and which are therefore not specific to the travel and tourism industry in their effects. By comparison, the competitive or micro environment is part of the tourism system because it concerns the actions and activities of entities in the tourism system which directly affect the goals of each member of the system whether they be individual companies or a collection of organizations constituting a destination.
The macro environment is global in its scope. Events in one part of the world today can produce an array of consequences for Brazil. Global forces can alter the country's attractiveness to tourists, shift the pattern of wealth to create new emerging origin markets, adjust the relative costs of travel to Brazil, and disrupt relations between other cultures and most of Brazil. These forces present the country with a number of special concerns, problems, or issues that Brazil must either adapt to, or overcome.
The global (macro) environment is in a constant state of change and evolution. Destination managers need to regularly monitor the environment if they are to understand the 'big picture' and anticipate and pre-empt changes altering the tourism landscape. Marketers will recognize this as the need to avoid 'marketing myopia'.
Macro environmental factors are often categorized into six principal groups related to the economy, technology, ecology, political and legal developments, sociocultural issues, and the constantly evolving demographic environment.
The competitive (micro) environment
A destination's competitive (micro) environment is made up of organizations, influences, and forces that lie within the destination's immediate arena of tourism activities and competition. These close-in elements of the environment tend to have a more direct and immediate impact than do elements of the global (macro) environment, as a general rule. The microenvironment, because of its proximity and greater sense of immediacy, often occupies the attention of managers due to the ramifications for the destination's ability to serve visitors and remain competitive.
Apart from the destination itself, the competitive (micro) environment includes other entities that together form the so called 'travel trade', in addition to the various tourism markets, competing destinations, and a destination's publics or stakeholders. As components of the tourism system, they shape the immediate environment within which a destination must adapt in order to compete. The components include both suppliers who are connected to tourists through tourism marketing channels consisting of intermediaries and facilitators. These include tour packagers, who assemble tourism products or experiences from among the vast alternatives supplied; retail travel agents, who provide information and reservation convenience and expertise to tourism markets; specialty channellers, such as incentive travel firms, corporate travel offices, meeting and convention planners etc. who, by their nature, provide specialized forms of travel planning and organization; and facilitators, who assist in the efficient and effective functioning of the tourism system by improving the flow of information, money, knowledge, services, and people.
Customers, that is travellers and tourists, are, or at least should be, the focus and source of the driving force in the competitive (micro) environment.
Another element of the competitive environment are the competitors themselves; that is, other destinations, organizations, or firms with which an entity competes because they offer broadly similar products to essentially the same group of customers, at least in part. Traditionally, these 'competitors' have been regarded as adversaries. Increasingly, however, in these days of downsizing, partnerships, and virtual corporations, a new world, 'coopetition', is being added to the lexicon of the business world to reflect the fact that other organizations or entities can present both cooperative as well as competitive challenges.
A destination's internal environment or internal culture is also an element of the micro or competitive environment affecting its competitiveness. To be competitive, a destination must function as a real entity. That is, it must have a sense of itself. In other words, it should have a purpose and be managed in a way that promotes the pursuit of that purpose. In the case of Brazil, the author suspects that it probably plays a strong and unique role in shaping the country's tourism image, as well as its reality.
The final element of a destination's competitive (micro) environment involves the many publics with which a destination must contend and satisfy. These include the media, government departments, the general public, local residents, financial institutions, and citizen action groups.
Core resources and attractors
This component of the model describes the primary elements of destination appeal. It is these factors that are the key motivators for visitation to a destination. While other components are essential for success and profitability, it is the core resources and attractors that are the fundamental reasons that prospective visitors choose one destination over another. These factors fall into seven categories; physiography and climate, culture and history, market ties, mix of activities, special events, entertainment, and the tourism superstructure.
Because so much of the tourism experience is associated with the physical resources of a destination, the physiography and climate of a destination can be so important that it dominates other factors of competitiveness. Since it includes the overall nature of the landscape and the climate of the destination it defines the nature of the environmental framework within which the visitor exists and enjoys the destination. It also defines much of the aesthetics and visual appeal of the destination - and because it is a factor over which destination managers have little or no control, much of the built tourism environment is constrained by its characteristics. Thus, to a great extent, a destination's physiography and climate is the one parameter of core attractiveness around which other factors must be creatively developed.
Similarly, the culture and history of a destination can be an enormously important factor as well. Although it may be viewed as somewhat more malleable than physiography and climate from a management perspective, the culture and history of a destination is also determined by factors well outside the scope of tourism. Indeed, it can be argued with great justification that little or no attempt should be made to alter, and especially to prostitute, local culture and history, for the purpose of tourism development.
Once this constraint is accepted however, a destination's culture and history furnishes a basic and powerful attracting force for the prospective visitor. This force appears to be growing in significance for many segments of the travel market, particularly in today's world of 'homogenized tourism' where one destination often seems to resemble another. Thus, if a destination can provide visitors with a unique setting within which to experience lifestyles outside of their day-to-day routine, it has a clear competitive advantage. If this lifestyle is complemented by historical environments that contrast with those found in the home situation, the destination has a clear competitive advantage in efforts to create a memorable experience. From the author's perspective, Brazil would appear to possess many competitive advantages on this dimension of the model.
The market ties component of destination attractiveness is also outside the direct control of tourism destination managers. Nevertheless, it is one that evolves over time, and one that can be influenced to varying degrees by those responsible for managing a tourism destination.
The term, market ties, includes several dimensions along which a destination establishes and builds linkages with the residents of tourism originating regions. Ethnic ties resulting from immigration patterns that have evolved over time - often long periods of time - provide the strongest and perhaps most enduring linkages for building systematic and predictable travel flows to a destination. The 'visiting friends and relatives' (VFR) segment of the travel market, while not necessarily the most profitable segment, provides a firm foundation for building tourism within a destination. Even more important, it often leads to the establishment of business ties that can generate both a steady flow of visitors and create other forms of economic development. Other ties include religion, sports, trade, and culture.
The range or mix of activities within a destination represents one of the most critical aspects of destination appeal - and one over which destination managers do have extensive influence and control. While the activities within a destination may be defined to a large extent by physiography and culture, there is nevertheless considerable scope for creativity and initiative.
The activities dimension of destination attractiveness appears to be growing in importance as the traveller increasingly seeks experiences that go beyond the more passive visitation practices of the past. In The experience economy: work is theatre and every business a stage, Pine and Gilmore (1999) argue that customer experience rather than customer service is a hallmark of new economic growth: 'Experiences are a fourth economic offering [the others being commodity, good, or service[, as distinct from services as services are from goods...' (p. 2). The challenge facing the tourism destination manager is to dev