ECOLOGICAL PERFORMANCES OF MEDITERRANEAN TOURISM DESTINATIONS ACCORDING TO ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE INDEX (2020): An Evaluation with Multidimensional Scaling Analysis

Abstract

With the concept of competition gaining importance in tourism, all stakeholders of the industry strive to be superior to their competitors. Gaining competitive advantage brings with it the protection of market share and a stronger position against competitors. In tourism, both businesses and destinations are in a struggle to ensure continuity in their life cycle. This struggle brings about an important competition when environmental conditions are taken into consideration. Today, environmental protection is seen as an important competition issue. One of the important issue of competitiveness is ensuring sustainability and achieving continuity in all structural conditions. Besides, environmental is a factor that directly affects the competitiveness of tourism destinations. By ensuring environmental sustainability, it is possible for tourism destinations to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. The destinations in the Mediterranean region, which is one of the most important destinations of the world tourism activities, have started to pose an important problem for local people and tourists, especially in underdeveloped countries, with the development of mass tourism. In this study, using the Environmental Performance Index (2020), one of the prominent indices in environmental awareness, the ecological performance and sustainability competitiveness of the countries on the Mediterranean coast were analyzed with multi-dimensional scaling analysis.