The Contribution of Digital Technologies to Improving the Competitiveness of the Tourism Sector in European Union Countries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

While the paper underlying a topic of interest it falls in some problems that must be taken into account.

First of all, the citation style must be improved. We do not use to cite by writing the full name of the authors (e.g. M.E. Porter’s). Please, you have to follow the APA rules.

Second, the reviewer is surprised about the lack of recent literature. Just by taking a light look into google scholar I can find several researches of interest for the topic of this paper:

Vašaničová, P. (2025). Urban Networks and Tourism Development: Analyzing the Relationship Between Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Rankings and Travel and Tourism Development Index (TTDI). Urban Science, 9(3), 83.

Štilić, A., Puška, A., Božanić, D., & Đurić, A. (2024). Ranking European Countries Using Hybrid MEREC-MARCOS MCDA Based on Travel and Tourism Development Index. Tourism: An International Interdisciplinary Journal, 72(4), 592-608.

Allahverdi, M., Akandere, G., & Varol, F. (2025). Evaluation of the Competitiveness and Performance of Destinations Through Clustering Method Within the Scope of the Travel and Tourism Development Index. International Journal of Tourism Research, 27(5), e70122.

Vena-Oya, J., Sabiote-Ortiz, C. M., Rodríguez-Molina, M. Á., & Castañeda-García, J. A. (2025). Analysing how destinations reach sustainability through digitalisation: a semi-qualitative approach. European Planning Studies, 1-18.

Qazi, A. (2024). Exploring the interdependent drivers of tourism competitiveness: insights from the Travel and Tourism Development Index. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal.

Vena-Oya, J., Núñez-Tabales, J. M., Rey-Carmona, F. J., & Durán-Román, J. L. (2025). Sustainability drivers and their impact on tourism competitiveness and tourist performance: an integrated analysis. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 1-17.

Stryzhak, O., Cibák, L. U., Sidak, M., & Yermachenko, V. (2024). Socio-economic development of tourist destinations: A cross-country analysis. Journal of Eastern European and Central Asian Research (JEECAR), 11(1), 79-96.

Kubickova, V., Harcsova, H., & Bruskova, B. (2025). INNOVATION POTENTIAL AND TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN THE EU: THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION AND RESEARCH INVESTMENT ON TOURISM PERFORMANCE. Transformations in Business & Economics, 24(2).

Giambona, F., Magrini, A., & Fusco, E. (2024). Assessing tourism sustainability in European Union countries: A multi-directional benefit of the doubt composite indicator. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 95, 102042.

Purwono, R., Esquivias, M. A., Sugiharti, L., & Rojas, O. (2024). Tourism destination performance and competitiveness: The impact on revenues, jobs, the economy, and growth. Journal of tourism and services, 15(28), 161-187.

Agostinho, M. N., Dias, A., & F. Pereira, L. (2024). Tourism direct GDP: configuration of antecedents and tourism future performance in high-income countries’. Journal of Tourism Futures.

 

Third, there is a problem with the introduction section. Actually, this introduction is not an introduction like the reviewer understand it. A good introduction should contain a brief discussion of the current state of the art, how this paper is included in this state of the art, how this paper supposes an advance in the literature and how you reach to your conclusions. Please, rewrite.

 

Another critical issue is the methodology employed. This is a descriptive approach. This is not a real problem, but the conclusions must be taken with an enormous caution because of the lack of causality in your research. Please, be sure that your statements meet with the method that you have carry out.

 

Regarding the discussion and the conclusions, please, visit my second comment. You have to analyze how your paper increases the current knowledge about this topic. As I pointed out earlier, you should read those articles and explain why your research supposes an advance for the recent literature.

Author Response

Comment 1: First of all, the citation style must be improved. We do not use to cite by writing the full name of the authors (e.g., M.E. Porter’s). Please, you have to follow the APA rules.

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree and have revised all citations throughout the manuscript to the strict APA edition format. These changes appear in the References section and in-text citations across all sections.

Comment 2: Second, the reviewer is surprised about the lack of recent literature. Just by taking a light look into google scholar I can find several researches of interest for the topic of this paper.

Response 2: We appreciate this valuable suggestion. We have integrated these recent studies into the literature review and discussion. Additional 2024-2025 references (e.g., Stryzhak et al., 2024) were added to strengthen the state-of-the-art discussion.

Comment 3: Third, there is a problem with the introduction section. Actually, this introduction is not an introduction like the reviewer understand it. A good introduction should contain a brief discussion of the current state of the art, how this paper is included in this state of the art, how this paper supposes an advance in the literature and how you reach to your conclusions. Please, rewrite.

Response 3: Thank you for this insightful feedback. We have rewritten the Introduction to include a state-of-the-art synthesis (citing WEF TTDI 2024 and recent models like Dwyer & Kim, 2003; Salinas-Fernandez et al., 2019) and explicitly position our contribution: applying Hellwig's method to 11 Eurostat variables (2015-2024) for novel digitalization-TTDI linkages in EU tourism. 

Comment 4: Another critical issue is the methodology employed. This is a descriptive approach. This is not a real problem, but the conclusions must be taken with an enormous caution because of the lack of causality in your research. Please, be sure that your statements meet with the method that you have carry out.

Response 4: Thank you for this suggestion. Methodological rigor has been enhanced by justifying the 11 variables' alignment with TTDI's ICT Readiness pillar, and providing explicit Pearson correlation results.

Comment 5: Regarding the discussion and the conclusions, please, visit my second comment. You have to analyze how your paper increases the current knowledge about this topic. As I pointed out earlier, you should read those articles and explain why your research supposes an advance for the recent literature.

Response 5: Thank you for emphasizing this critical point. New paragraphs have been added to the Discussion explicitly analyzing advances over the suggested literature. These points are then reiterated in revised Conclusions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General comments

• Avoid statements that exaggerate such as (line 23) “ Tourism is a major factor in economic growth and development” . Does it apply to all countries ?
• Check your citations , there are cases that first names’ initials appear in text (e.g. line 71)
• Considering the TTDI , the most recent one is by 2024. Why did you use the 2021 index ?

 

Considering the methodology, I would like to refer to three major issues that drive my decision

• The analysis relies heavily on household-level digital indicators and this may not accurately reflect digitalization within the tourism industry itself. The digitalization index is constructed using general household ICT metrics, not tourism-sector-specific digital adoption indicators. This assumes that higher national ICT usage directly translates into tourism digital competitiveness, which may not hold. The authors make a statement at line 215 (The choice of indicators is deliberate, since households’ access to and use of the Internet are the foundations of tourist businesses’ activities) that is totally inaccurate. This justification is very simplistic and not methodologically strong enough to fully validate using only household-level digital metrics for constructing a digitalization index meant to explain tourism sector competitiveness.
• The second issue is that the analysis is limited to one year, within the pandemic period, which is not typical for both digitalization and tourism competitiveness. This year has been spotted emergency digital adoption and severe tourism disruptions, making it statistically volatile. With this issue, the research faces temporal reliability and may distort the trends. You may use panel database (before and after pandemic period) or conduct sensitivity checks using multiple years (e.g., 2018–2023).
• Lastly, the establishes only a weak-to-moderate linear relationship (r = 0.372), yet generalizes broadly about digitalization driving competitiveness. No attempt is made to control for confounding variables such as GDP per capita, innovation capacity, tourism infrastructure, or policy support. This issue is critical because it limits the explanatory power and may overstate the relationship.

 

 

Minor issues

• Line 40, after the digitalization you may also refer to the concept of competitiveness

Author Response

Comment 1: Avoid statements that exaggerate such as (line 23) “ Tourism is a major factor in economic growth and development”. Does it apply to all countries?

Response 1: This feedback is appreciated. The statement has been revised

Comment 2: Check your citations, there are cases that first names’ initials appear in text (e.g. line 71)

Response 2: All in-text citations have been standardized to APA style

Comment 3: Considering the TTDI , the most recent one is by 2024. Why did you use the 2021 index?

Response 3: Thank you for this insightful feedback. TTDI references have been updated to the 2024 edition, with EU rankings recalculated and reflected across the manuscript.

Comment 4: The analysis relies heavily on household-level digital indicators and this may not accurately reflect digitalization within the tourism industry itself. The digitalization index is constructed using general household ICT metrics, not tourism-sector-specific digital adoption indicators. This assumes that higher national ICT usage directly translates into tourism digital competitiveness, which may not hold. The authors make a statement at line 215 (The choice of indicators is deliberate, since households’ access to and use of the Internet are the foundations of tourist businesses’ activities) that is totally inaccurate. This justification is very simplistic and not methodologically strong enough to fully validate using only household-level digital metrics for constructing a digitalization index meant to explain tourism sector competitiveness.

Response 4: Thank you for emphasizing this point. The indicator set has been expanded to 11 variables, aligning explicitly with TTDI's ICT Readiness pillar while incorporating tourism-specific metrics.  

Comment 5: The second issue is that the analysis is limited to one year, within the pandemic period, which is not typical for both digitalization and tourism competitiveness. This year has been spotted emergency digital adoption and severe tourism disruptions, making it statistically volatile. With this issue, the research faces temporal reliability and may distort the trends. You may use panel database (before and after pandemic period) or conduct sensitivity checks using multiple years (e.g., 2018–2023).

Response 5: Thank you for this suggestion.The dataset now uses 2015-2024 averages from Eurostat, spanning pre-, during-, and post-pandemic periods for temporal robustness 

Comment 6: Lastly, the establishes only a weak-to-moderate linear relationship (r = 0.372), yet generalizes broadly about digitalization driving competitiveness. No attempt is made to control for confounding variables such as GDP per capita, innovation capacity, tourism infrastructure, or policy support. This issue is critical because it limits the explanatory power and may overstate the relationship.

Response 6: Pearson r updated to 0.46 (p<0.01) using 2024 TTDI rankings, described as "moderate positive correlation." Discussion now qualifies: "while no strong correlation was observed, there is a clear tendency... with other factors also influencing" addressing confounders via multi-variable Hellwig measure including GDP (X3) and R&D (X4).

Comment 7: Line 40, after the digitalization you may also refer to the concept of competitiveness

Response 7: Thank you for this suggestion, this part of the manuscript was extended accordingly.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made a great effort to improve the manuscript. 

Author Response

The reviewer did not raise any comments on the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have done a good work, revisiting my comments. I am satisfied with the corrections. However, there is one last correction. Authors have to modify the justification of using the variables (lines 240-246) that refers to the previous model used. These lines remain unchanged although the authors have changed the variables.

Author Response

Comment: Authors have to modify the justification of using the variables (lines 240-246) that refers to the previous model used. These lines remain unchanged although the authors have changed the variables.

Response: Thank you for this observation. We have revised the relevant section (it is highlighted in the new version of the manuscript) in line with the comment.