Business Performance and Sustainability in Cultural and Rural Tourism Destinations

Laura Parte and Pilar Alberca
Additional contact information
Laura Parte: Department of Business and Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, National Distance Education University (UNED), Paseo Senda del Rey, 11, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Pilar Alberca: Department of Business and Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, National Distance Education University (UNED), Paseo Senda del Rey, 11, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: This study analyzes business performance through efficiency score estimation in two sustainable tourism models: cultural tourism and rural tourism. The study uses microeconomic data (microdata) of Spanish firms with different characteristics in terms of size, region, location and financial variables. Using multistage modeling (Data envelopment analysis, DEA, non-parametric frontier and non-parametric tests), the main results show that the average efficiency is higher for rural tourism destinations than for cultural tourism destinations. Similar to other tourism industries, efficiency results by geographical and regional destination confirm that location is a driver of the efficiency levels in rural and cultural tourism destinations. Furthermore, the results do not support the scale economies hypothesis: the average efficiency is higher for very small firms compared to other firm sizes, although the average efficiency for large firms is higher than that for medium-size firms. Regarding dynamic efficiency, the results reveal slight variations among the years examined, but the differences are not statistically significant. Finally, the study sheds light on the link between the efficiency of rural tourism and sustainable practices as the investment in environmental protection developed by regions during the period.

Keywords: business performance; non-parametric DEA models; tourism firms; rural and tourism destinations; sustainable tourism. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/9/8/892/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/9/8/892/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:9:y:2021:i:8:p:892-:d:537932

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().