COMPETITIVENESS OF TOURIST DESTINATIONS A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SÃO LUÍS-MARANHÃO FACING THE NORTHEAST BRAZILIAN CAPITALS

The competitive advantage of a destination in relation to other similar destinations should stimulate the commitment of stakeholders on the supply side to encourage more investments and actions in the tourism sector, making it more attractive, competitive and sustainable. The objective of this study is to analyze the competitive position that the tourist destination São Luís occupies in relation to the other capitals of the Brazilian northeast. The study is characterized as descriptive-explanatory, whose universe is composed of 10 destinations in the northeast region of Brazil. The methodology of quantitative nature simultaneously analyzes, in a descriptive and explanatory way, the data regarding the tourist flow and the competitiveness indicators, based on the National Tourism Competitiveness Model. Non-parametric statistical tests were used for comparison and ranking of competitors. The data indicate that the tourist destination São Luís is ranked 6th among the Northeast capitals, both in terms of performance regarding the tourist flow and regional competitiveness. However, it presents a low coefficient of variation along the analyzed period, which indicates a slow and moderate growth, however, positive. The results can contribute to the tourism industry by subsidizing managers in decision making and effective action. Aceito:26/10/2020 Publicado: 23/11/2020 a Professor at the Federal Institute of Education Science and Technology. São Luís, MA, BR pessoa.martinz@ifma.edu.br Professor and researcher in the Tourism and Hospitality Program. Universidade do Vale do Itajaí – UNIVALI, c Professor and researcher in the Tourism and Hospitality Program. Universidade do Vale do Itajaí – UNIVALI, DOI: https://doi.org/10.14210/at.v5n3.p01-19 ©2020 autores. Publicado por Univali Esse artigo é de livre acesso sob a licença


Introduction
In the last decades, the growth in the flow of tourists around the world has been accompanied by an increase in the number of destinations, a fact that has generated an environment of greater competitiveness (Matovelle & Marrero, 2014). In this context, competitiveness emerges as a central theme in the tourism research field (Loureiro & Ferreira, 2015;Carvalho, Márquez & Montserrat-Díaz, 2016;Lopes & Soares, 2017;Costa & Lima, 2018;Estevão et al, 2018;Perna, Custódio & Oliveira, 2018;Nalakath & Koshy, 2019) .
The creation of competitive advantage is linked to how the organization differentiates itself from current and future competitors and how this differentiation is perceived and understood, in terms of value, by customers; arising from the way the organization articulates marketing strategies with internal strategies (Hocayen-da- Silva & Teixeira, 2007).
On the competitiveness of tourist destinations Santos, Ferreira & Costa (2014) point to 04 factors that can negatively influence the ability to compete. The first factor refers to the deterioration of destination infrastructures; the second relates to destination management, namely the lack of strategic vision; the third factor refers to the loss of economic vitality of destinations; and the fourth concerns the impacts that tourism activity has on the territory, emphasizing environmental, social and cultural impacts.
It is observed, however, that the negative prominence when it focuses on the lack of strategic vision, radiates and causes considerable impacts on a whole set of factors directly related to the destination governance and the behavior of the predominant social structure in the receiving community, with unpredictable effects.
The competitiveness of tourism activity cannot be analyzed in isolation, since it is directly related to the performance of diverse organizations and, above all, of other economic, political and social sectors. The main models of tourist destination competitiveness converge when treating competitiveness as an intermediate step towards a final objective: local and/or regional development. Considering, also, that no tourist destination is competitive in isolation, since competitiveness is a comparative concept and, in this sense, the competitiveness of a tourist destination should be evaluated in comparison with its competitors (Vieira et. al., 2019).
Thus, this article aims to analyze the competitive position in which the tourist destination São Luís presents itself in relation to the other capitals of the northeast of Brazil, based on the indicators of the National Tourism Competitiveness Index (Barbosa, 2015)  There are about 3,000 km of beaches, making evident the expansion of tourist activities in the Northeast territories (Coriolano, Vasconcelos & Fernandes, 2017).
Tourism has resized the importance of the northeast coast as an economically active area. This redefinition was mainly due to the restructuring of the region's capital cities, which, due to the investments aimed at the tourist activity, obtained shades of modernity through projects that valued its particular coastal geography (Alves & Dantas, 2016).
The article is divided into 6 sections, including this introduction. The next section presents a brief historicalgeographical overview of São Luís tourist destination.
The third section refers to the main models of destination competitiveness developed so far. The fourth section describes the research methodology. The fifth section presents and discusses the results, and the sixth section presents the work final considerations.

SÃO LUÍS TOURIST DESTINATION: historical-geographical overview
It is known that São Luís is the only provincial metropolis in Brazil that was not born Portuguese but French.
This circumstance lent it another prerogative of distinction among its counterparts: it was the only one that received, in the act of its foundation, its own regiment, a statute, an institutional charter, a constitution, may we say, that was granted to it by its founders, on behalf of the King of France and Navarra (Meireles, (Bogéa, Brito & Pestana, 2005).
Part of the Historical Center of São Luís has had its residential function replaced by commerce and services over time. In particular, the area protected by the federal overturning legislation has suffered a more accentuated emptying, aggravated by the installation of the federal, state and municipal administrative function in the surrounding buildings, pushing the resident population further away (Santo, 2006, p. 70).
Placed at the western end of the promontory formed by the confluence of the Bacanga and Anil rivers, the Historical Center of São Luís, with its two hundred and twenty hectares, is composed by the original core of the city, dated from the first quarter of the 17th century, and the adjacent urban spaces, dating from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries (Bogéa , Brito & Pestana, 2005 Table 1.

Tourism economy in Maranhão
More recent data made available by the Observatory of Tourism of Maranhão, through a bulletin called Formal Economy -Employment and Income, released in 2019, show a little encouraging picture for the sector.
One of tourism's pillars as a socioeconomic activity, i.e., the generation of employment and income, presents the total number of 43,033 jobs generated by the sector in 2018, which represents 0.6% in relation to all other economic activities, with a negative variation of 1.83% compared to 2017, a result that will certainly be further aggravated by the scenario under which the world economy presents itself, due to the global economic retraction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, whose impacts strongly affect tourism.
Another important aspect to consider is the nominal average monthly income of employees in Maranhão, which in 2018 was R$ 2,423.33, while the same indicator shows that employees in the tourism sector earn an average of R$ 1,432.88, which represents only 59.12% of other workers, a fact that should contribute to discouraging those interested in working in the sector.
Still according to the same comparative study, the total income of workers in the tourism sector represents 3.41% of the total income earned by other workers in other economic activities. It is important to highlight  (2007) .
Tourist destinations are one of the most difficult entities to operate, manage and commercialize, due to the great variety of stakeholders, directly involved in the development, production and delivery of tourism products, and it is also considered important the complex interests and relationships existing between these parties, and competitiveness in a tourist destination context means different concerns for different people, facts that characterize the multidimensionality of tourism (Buhalis, 2000).
The comparative competitiveness of a tourist destination comprises its resources, such as climate, fauna and flora; considering that competitive competitiveness concerns the destination's ability to effectively use resources (Loureiro & Ferreira, 2015).
Due to the variety of approaches, the possibilities to explain the models have also grown, making the analytical capacity even more complex, which makes it difficult to identify which dimensions are effectively determinant for the competitiveness of the destinations.
Competitiveness factors in tourism have a positive impact on the development of countries, especially when considering the economic sphere, confirming the hypothesis that tourism is positively related to national income or GDP. It can still be concluded that each pillar of competitiveness has a different impact on the development of countries, but that, in general, the impact of each is positive on GDP, as well as the total impact (Montanari & Giraldi, 2013).
Some authors, however, disagree on the importance of tourism competitiveness as a development tool, claiming that highly competitive destinations can help attract more visitors to a destination, but this does not necessarily mean that the sites will benefit from tourism development. Filters in the economy can easily neutral-One of the main challenges that the tourism sector has faced is to find ways to articulate the interests of the business segments, local public authorities and the communities involved and who participate in the production chain and final availability of the tourism product, in addition to its conciliation with other productive activities existing in tourist destinations.
Considering the numbers presented, one must ques-

Methodology
The study is characterized as descriptive-explanatory, in a quantitative approach whose universe is composed

Geo-Tourist Itinerary Planning Process
Chart Source: Barbosa (2015) nation ranking, Table 5. In this sense, each of them must be interpreted differently. Table 4 shows 4 columns. The first shows the destinations under comparison, the second is the difference sign (+ and -) of the tourism flow averages between the destinations under comparison, the third is the significance value (p value) and the fourth is the diagnosis (S = Significant difference and NS = Non significant difference).

Table Interpretation of comparisons between each destination pair
First of all, observe the "Diagnosis" column and check if the p-value is significant (nomenclature equals "S").
Once it is verified that the diagnosis is of significant pvalue, it can be concluded that there is a statistically significant difference between the destinations under comparison in relation to the tourist flow index.
Once the existence of a significant difference is verified, one should look at the "Difference Sign" column, and if the sign is negative, it means that, on average, the tourist flow referring to the first destination in the "Comparisons" column is lower than that of the second. If the difference sign is positive, it means that, on average, the tourist flow referring to the first destination in the "Comparisons" column is greater than that of the second.
For example: In the first row of Table 4 we see that the diagnosis was equal to "S", so we can say that there is a statistically significant difference between the Aracajú and São Luís destinations regarding the tourist flow.
Then, observing the difference sign, one can conclude that, on average, the tourist flow index for Aracajú destination tends to be lower than that presented by São Luís destination (or one can also say that, on average, the tourist flow index for São Luís tends to be higher than that presented by Aracajú).

TABLE INTERPRETATION MODE
For the interpretation of the information, two tables are presented, one with the comparisons between each destination pair, Table 4, and the other with the desti-

Interpretation of the destination ranking tables
From the hypothesis tests carried out, a ranking of the tourist flow of the destinations was assembled. The statistical tests code each destination with letters, so that different codes mean that the destinations are at different levels in relation to the tourist flow.
The table referring to the ranking - Table 5

Descriptive Analysis
The descriptive analysis of the data occurs in two dis-   Table 6. In addition to the descriptive measures, boxplots were also elaborated, Figure 2, and line graph,    (2010), in addition to Katz & Mcsweeney (1980), for the Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test with Bonferroni correction.  (Barbosa, 2015). Table 8    Therefore, the 6th position in the tourist flow ranking results from this little evolutionary behavior in order to reach effective indicators that bring you closer to your nearest competitors.
Observing the data in Table 5  It therefore reflects the source and cause of the deficiencies.
The regional cooperation indicator involves the following variables: governance; regional cooperation projects; regional tourism planning; itinerary; promotion and support to marketing in an integrated manner, whose performance places the destination São Social Aspects is an indicator in which São Luís stands    It can be observed that the behavior of the graphs considers the relative position of the destination São Luís among the ten destinations analyzed, considering, therefore, that Parnaíba (PI) has entered the analysis only as a support to the destination Teresina as a strengthening of the sun and beach criteria.

Final Considerations
Tourism stakeholders are classified as participants on the supply and demand sides. The players on the supply side are called destination management organizations, service providers and the host population; and those on the demand side are the tourists. The excellent performance of the supply-side players basically improves the level of satisfaction on the demand side, which is the ultimate goal of any destination management organization for growth and the capacity to sustain the destination (Nalakath & Koshy, 2019).
There is no tool capable of diagnosing all the difficulties and potentialities of a tourist destination. The purpose of this investigation, besides analyzing the competitive position that the tourist destination São Luís presents itself in relation to the other capitals of the Brazilian northeast, is to strategically diagnose the current situation of this and other regional tourist destinations, which allows to know the potentialities and limitations of the destination as a way to improve and enhance good practices in tourism management, especially at the regional level.
The increasing development of regional tourist destinations, therefore, always requires an analysis of the internal and external factors that affect their timing.
The results obtained by the tourist destination São Luís, by means of the indicators evaluated in this article, should be considered as a contribution for the revision of the planning process, organization, management and control of the tourist activity, given the expressive potentialities that the destination disposes, and the evident fragilities exposed through the indicators, all susceptible of improvement.
Therefore, having a diagnostic tool as an essential part of the strategic planning process in regional tourist destinations is a big step on the way to solving the problems faced in such a complex and multifaceted activity as tourism.
Data update will certainly express another reality, ho- The study's limitations stem from the lack of updated official data that can reflect the reality at the present time. Empirical research to update data on competitiveness and tourism flow will help to supply decision makers with relevant information to guide their strategies, aiming at local development through tourism.