1. Introduction
Tourism is among the most vital sector that plays an important role in the economies of many countries in the world (John, 2018) , and that is because of the financial flows, it achieves, thus attracting hard currency and creating new job opportunities, etc., as tourism is an integral component of the economic development policy of many countries, including Algeria, which gave great attention to the tourism sector and consider it an essential means for economic diversification. The competitiveness of tourism and travel is one of the indicators that show the economic strength which is the tourism sector represents at the present time as it has become a stand-alone industry (Sahoo, 2014) , and many economies of the world have relied on it (as it is) a major source of income; so the strength of any country in the tourism sector or industry depends on the strength and ability of tourism to influence its economy and its ability to compete regionally or globally, which requires countries to pay attention to the issue of competitiveness in the tourism and travel industry and benefit from its concept so that it can achieve development and growth and benefit from this industry, because of its effects on the economic, social, cultural and environmental aspects of communities and states, in addition on that its ability to positively stimulus other sectors to achieve sustainable development purposes. Algeria is one of the countries that have a variety of tourism capabilities that have their place in the regional and international arena, which makes them eligible for the advancement of this sector if there is sufficient seriousness to develop this sector; among the existing Algerian natural ingredients, we can mention (Kouider & Mohamed, 2012) :
- Location: Algeria sits on area of 2,381,741 km2 and its excellent location makes it a very important tourist pole.
- Climate: Algeria has a Mediterranean climate type on entire northern edge length that covers the coast and the hilly atlas (hot dry summer, wet and cold winter), semi-arid on the Highlands in the center of the country, and desert as soon as you cross the desert Atlas Mountains.
- Landforms: Landforms of Algeria are made of three major blocks: the hill in the north, the highlands and the hill atlas in the middle, and the desert in the south.
- The hill: A wide coastal strip with 1200 km length and 100 to 200 widths. Highlands and Atlas Hill: combination of plain supper hills, which are oblique from Moroccan border to the northeast.
- Sahara (desert): Desert covers about 85% of The Algerian surface (2000 km from west to east, and 1500 km from north to south). Algeria includes many national parks and reserves in view of the vast area of the country. Among these natural sites there are so far ten natural reserves belonging to the world natural heritage which is internationally protected by UNESCO, and a significant other group of national barns remains a candidate. To become global reserves, these sites have been classified because they meet a set of conditions such as the availability of an ecosystem distinct from the surrounding areas, the presence of a certain No. of rare creatures, the diversity of vegetation or geological structures in relation to desert areas and others (Kouider & Mohamed, 2012) . Currently, Algeria is the most tourism-competitive country in the North Africa region (TTCI, 2017) . However, the country lags behind the world’s most competitive tourism destinations such as Spain, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Switzerland which attracted 620 million of the 1.2 billion international visitors worldwide in 2016 (TTCI, 2017) . The country ranks 105th. In terms of tourism and revenue and 21st in terms of tourism expenditure (Khalil & Al-Masaad, 1997) . It also ranks 27th in terms of tourism’s total contribution to GDP (27th in terms of tourism’s direct contribution to GDP), 26th in terms of tourism’s total contribution to employment (47th in terms of tourism’s direct contribution to employment), and 22nd in terms of tourism investment (WTTC, 2018) . In light of the above, Algeria seeks to improve its competitive position in the international tourism market. Compared to neighboring countries, it is considered one of its weakest in attracting tourists, although it has the same climatic and natural characteristics. Tourism businesses and entrepreneurs are crucial in the development of the country’s attractiveness and competitiveness. On this basis, the Algerian government seeks to achieve the development of the tourism sector by increasing future investments in this sector. Tourism expenditure is expected to rise by 4% per annum, from 2018 to 2028 (Khalil & Al-Masaad, 1997) and accounts for 9.4% of the country’s total GDP in 2027, equating to a monetary value of $31 billion (WTTC, 2017) . The total contribution of tourism employment is expected to rise by 5% per annum to 570,000 jobs in 2027 (11.1% of the total). Investments in the travel and tourism sector will rise by 11% per annum over the next 10 years to reach Algeria $15.3 billion in 2027, 11.2% of total investment in the country. Tourism in Algeria provides access to the most relevant information in order to enjoy a pleasant and safe and pleasant trip in Algeria. Even in 2017, the travel and tourism industry is still developing in Algeria despite the huge oil and gas industry in the country. However, the government is now looking to develop the country’s travel and tourism industry, with a particular emphasis on Saharan and cultural tourism. Since 2005, Algiers has reformed its legislation to ease foreign and local investments in the tourism industry. The first results have been generated on the establishment of 5 stars hotels and 16 international airlines serving more than 28 airports in Algeria.
2. Study Objectives
The paper focuses on tourism businesses that consist of Tourism products potentials and provide a variety of activities and services enables it to adapt to the factors affecting competitiveness. And create and deliver a quality travel experience to tourists (Goldener & Ritchie, 2012) . The major tourism businesses include transportation, accommodation, attractions, travel trade, events, adventure and outdoor recreation, food, and entertainment sectors (Anuar, Ahmad, Jusoh, & Hussain, 2012; Goldener & Ritchie, 2012) . Other businesses include local community/government, local businesses, organizations, and associations (Anuar et al., 2012) , municipal, regional and national government organizations, the tourism information industry (e.g. advertising agencies, the Internet, magazines), tourism boards, and destination marketing organizations (Ritchie & Crouch, 2003) .
3. The Theoretical Framework of the Study
In our study it was done the examination of the factors that influence destination competitiveness reported in past studies (e.g. Dwyer & Kim, 2003 ; Enright & Newton, 2004 ; Ritchie & Crouch, 2000 ) revealed the four clearly identifiable groups of factors such as destination resources, destination infrastructure and support services, destination human related factors, and destination business environment. In this study it is assumed that these four groups of factors predict destination competitiveness. Previous research found a positive relationship between destination competitiveness and destination resources (Bull, 1995; Mihalič, 2013) , destination infrastructure and support services (Jovanović & Ilić, 2016) , destination human-related factors (Vengesayi, 2003) , and the business environment (Azzopardi & Nash, 2017; Enright & Newton, 2004) . Thus, it is argued that the destination resources, infrastructure and support services, human-related factors, and the business environment are the four main predictor groups of Algeria’s competitiveness.
4. Literature Review
4.1. Tourist Competitive Concept
We can define the competitiveness as the a principal level in the tourism sector by using a new methodology of the International Institute for Development and Management 5 (Aqueveque & Bianchi, 2017) . The big value in the tourism investments which focus how to attract a new tourist and the most important is the investors at that sector and make the promotion of this destination in whole of the world, by making a new technique which based on offering a high quality of tourist services including a new generation technology.
The World Tourism Organization defines tourism competitiveness as “the increase in production and improvement places that excel in the quality of goods and services to the satisfaction of consumers’ tastes and the country’s ability to generate resources that outperform its competitors in global markets” (Azzopardi & Nash, 2015) . The competitiveness of the tourism sector indicates that the ability of institutions belonging to the tourism sector in a country to achieve continuous success in international markets without relying on government support and protection, and this is what It leads to the distinction of those countries on this sector, while the competitive sector is the sector whose institutions are able to address competition, whether domestic or abroad, by maintaining its market share and working to develop it continuously and achieve profits (Ndivo & Manyara, 2016) . Tourism competitiveness is about the country’s ability to the maintain or increase its share in the tourism export market by attracting the largest number of tourists. As for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the tourism competitiveness of the tourist destination has been defined as the ability of the tourist destination to attract local and foreign tourists by providing quality, distinctive, innovative and attractive tourism services in order to gain market shares in its internal and international markets, and this is by using tourism resources in a distinctive way Efficiency and sustainability. For reference, the first report of the Economic Forum was issued in 2007 and ten Arab countries participated, then in 2009, fourteen Arab countries participated and fifteen countries participated in the 2011 report and thirteen Arab countries participated in the 2013 report. The report issued in 2015 on the competitiveness of tourism Travel, included 141 countries from all over the world, including 14 countries.
4.2. Supporting Factors to Improvements Competitiveness, in the Future
The World Tourism Organization points out that sustainable tourism models must meet the needs of current tourists and of the receiving regions, while protecting the resources on which these activities are based, guaranteeing opportunities for the future (WTO, 1993) . Growth in the number of arrivals should be a reflection on the competitiveness of the destination and its good work, and not an absolute objective that does not consider the circumstances of the destination. It should include the following improvements:
First, improving infrastructures and air services is fundamental to achieving this goal. Countries must expand the flights and companies operating in each country, as well as the rest of their transport infra-structure, to facilitate access to foreign travelers.
Second, countries must increase the value of their cultural and natural resources by investing in the rehabilitation and maintenance of historic and artistic heritage, as well as environmental protection.
Third, developing ICTs is a key issue; especially those oriented to commerce and tourist services and delivered through mobile devices. As Martín, Rodríguez, Zermeño, and Salinas (2018) indicate, “actions must be proposed that promote the competitiveness of the destination, as is the case of the use of new technologies that provide valuable at a on consumers in the tourism industry to conduct tourism intelligence”. Last, but not least, it is important to improve and expand on infrastructures for lodging and services to tourists, as well as to allow more flexibility in entry visas for international travelers in countries (Fernández et al., 2019) .
4.3. Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index: Sectors’ Priorities and Shifts
According to the World Economic Forum reports on the environment for travel and tourism around the world, many factors were measured that drive the development of the tourism sector, which contributes to enhancing the tourism competitiveness of any country. The report issued by the forum in its previous results (since its inception in 2007) has relied on three main indicators, out of which 14 sub-indicators have emerged, and each sub-indicator has variables. The sum of the variables for all indicators has reached 79 variables, while the report issued in 2015 has based its methodology on four Main indicators: the enabling environment, enabling policies and conditions, infrastructure, natural and cultural resources, and 14 sub-indices, where the sum of the variables for all indicators reached 90 variables.
Noting that, on September 04, 2019, the same four previous main indicators and 14 sub-indicators were adopted. The following are indicators of competitiveness and travel (Figure 1, Travel & Tourism Competitiveness).
Systems and legal frameworks protect the investor and preserve his property rights leading to a competitive capacity for the work environment between countries.
Security and safety (5 variables): Safety and security are an essential pillar and a determining factor for determining the competitiveness of the tourism and travel sector in a specific country. It is possible that tourists will be prevented
from traveling to dangerous countries or regions, making it less attractive to develop the tourism and travel sector in those places, (Díaz & Rodríguez, 2016) Health and hygiene (6 variables):The health and hygiene index are also necessary for tourists become ill, Tourists must be looked after and provided with adequate sanitation. Human resources and the labor market (9 variables): Human resources have an impact on economic indicators, as they play an important role in many countries, which requires training and promoting the better distribution of these skills through the labor market, Information and communication technology readiness (8 indicators): Online services and business operations are (of) increasing an importance in the tourism and travel sector, with the use of the Internet to plan routes and book travel and accommodation. However, information and communications technology has now become widespread and important for all sectors. The second main indicator this main indicator in measuring the competitiveness of countries depends on the importance and interest given by countries to tourism and travel within its priorities. Setting travel and tourism priorities (6 indicators): and also international openness (3 indicators) in terms of travel visas granted by the state to foreigners to visit their country and also through data On the tourism sector provided by the country, as well as brands, in addition to price competitiveness (4 indicators), (in addition)and to environmental sustainability (10 indicators) that focus on the rigorous implementation of environmental regulations and development of sustainability in the tourism sector and the number of global environmental treaties (Assaf & Josiassen, 2011; Díaz & Rodríguez, 2016; Khadaroo & Seetanah, 2007) . (The third main indicator) The third main indicator for the competitiveness report is an important indicator for the tourism sector, as air transport infrastructures (6 indicators), land and sea transport infrastructures (7 indicators) are among the most important characteristics of tourist countries that have more airports, ports, and land routes, and ease of access to tourist countries. As for the third sub-index that represents a competitive advantage for the country, is the infrastructure of tourism services (4 indicators) such as hotel rooms in resorts, hotels and apartments, also the presence of car rental companies and the presence of ATMs that facilitate the tourist use of them to withdraw the necessary money (The World Economic Forum 2019) . The main indicator is cultural and natural resources. It has only two sub-indicators. Each sub-index includes five variables: The country’s natural resources (5 indicators) constitute a competitive advantage in attracting tourists to its through the number of natural sites registered in the world heritage, known animals, globally registered, and the number of natural reserves in a country and the quality of nature. As for cultural resources (5 indicators), they are also a very important competitive force; they include the number of cultural sites registered in the world heritage, the number of sports fields, and the number of annual exhibitions and conferences (Bhatta & Ohe, 2020) . The cultural resources of a country are another crucial driver of competitiveness, as it includes the number of cultural sites registered in the World Heritage, the number of large sports fields that can host important sporting and recreational events. A new standard has been added that represents the digital demand for culture and entertainment, and this is through the number of Internet searches related to a country’s culture, which enables it to know the level of interest. In addition to the number of annual exhibitions and conferences held in a country.
As for Algeria, the subject of the study, it has been in the Tourism and Travel Competitiveness Report since the first report of the Economic Forum was issued in 2007. The following are the results of the report on the competitiveness of tourism and travel for Algeria from 2009-2019 (Table 1).
5. Hypotheses
The study Based on the competitiveness of travel and tourism sector; In four key indicators: enabling environment, enabling conditions and policies, infrastructure, natural and cultural resources. Where Algeria enjoys a variety of tourist resources and rich, but the weakness of tourism services and the lack of infrastructure ranked tourism activity, not to consider the tourism sector a priority, was a barrier to the State to achieve the desired goals of this sector, Therefore, This study stands at an important point, which is the capacity of tourism resources to support the competitiveness of this sector will be much higher than the explanatory capacity of its infrastructure, and recommended the study in the latter need to support the tourism sector and its priority, To integrate tourism and travel competitiveness, especially in relation to infrastructure and tourism services, and to provide security, safety and health, to environmental sustainability and conservation of natural and cultural resources, so that the competitiveness of the price Of which Algeria enjoys Comparison with the countries of the world, and exploit an advantage for travel and tourism in Algeria.
6. Methodology
6.1. Setting
Algeria is the chosen context of this study for three main reasons:
- First: Algeria possesses natural and cultural resources and infrastructure that enable it to compete with countries with a tourist destination in tourism and travel.
- Second: Many domestic and multinational firms based in Algeria are increasingly adopting practices its activities are oriented towards tourism competitiveness.
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Table 1. Tourism and travel competitiveness report from 2009 to 2019 for Algeria.
Int.: Internationally. Ar.: Arably. Source: The World Economic Forum, 2019 .
- Third: The commitment of the Algeria government to implement specific. World Tourism & Travel Organization recommendations What is stated in a report 2019, as part of the recent adjustment programs means: It is the enabling environment, policies and enabling conditions, infrastructure, natural and cultural resources, which enables it to tourism competitiveness.
6.2. Survey
6.2.1. Sample and Data Collection
Based on a systematic literature review, we drafted a questionnaire that was refined with personal interviews undertaken with six professionals and four researchers who had extensive experience in the Tourism Management Perspectives field. Then, we pretested the questionnaire with a survey circulated to 54 Employees working in tourism agencies who are familiar with tourism management at Algeria. Finally, we undertook a large quantitative study to test our hypotheses. A representative proportion from each to the examination of the factors that influence competitiveness reported in studies was desirable. the existence of some form of tourism policy. To satisfy our criteria, we used a list of 980 firms from the database of a company Tourism and travel in Algeria as a sampling frame. A stratified sample of 750 firms was selected from these companies. A web-based survey procedure was used for data collection, through which questionnaires were distributed to Tourism managers from the selected firms (see Appendix 2 for sample characteristics). Participants’ names and contact details were confirmed through telephone contact with the relevant company. A formal covering letter was then sent to the personal e-mail of the participant, providing a brief introduction and a general explanation of the study. From the 750 questionnaires sent, 684 questionnaires were returned, but we dropped 17 because of substantially incomplete data. Thus, 559 were collected and used for final analysis, giving an effective response rate of about 91.2%. Confidentiality of responses was emphasized in the cover letter.
6.2.2. Measures
Multi-item measures with a 7 point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) were used to assess all constructs and operationalized at the level of the study site. Competitiveness was a structured questionnaire was used to measure the constructs.
6.2.3. Non-Response BIAS
Possible non response bias was investigated following the method recommended by Armstrong and Overton (1977). The data set was divided into two halves, based on the median return date, and the answers of early and later respondents we recompiled. The rational for this procedure is that later spondees maybe more similar on respondents than are early respondents. However, based on t-tests analyses, no significant differences were found between nearly and late respondents on key measure so the study. Thus, non-response bias does not seem to be a concern.
6.2.4. Common Method BIAS
The instrument was assessed for its reliability by means of the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. We used the Harman’s one-factor test (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Lee, 2003) to address on the issue of common method variance. The basic assumption of this technique is that if a substantial amount of common method variance is present, either a single factor will emerge from the factor analysis or one general factor will account for the majority of the covariance among the measures. By applying this test in our study, common method variance does not appear to be a problem, since the first factor did not account for the majority of the variance (only 31.11%) (Table 2 and Table 3).
7. Results
7.1. Respondents Profile
Our results provide reassurance regarding the likely impact of response bias on risk estimates in this study, given the response rates achieved and similar tendencies by response status in cases and controls. However, some distortion in RR is possible, especially since our results are based on a subset of non-respondents. Observed differences between respondents and non-respondents suggest that continued consideration of the issue of non-response is needed, especially since varying methods used to encourage participation may lead to differences in respondents’ characteristics. The majority of the respondents were from the tourism
and travel industry (63.3%), followed by the other consumer services sector (19.62%). Out of the tourism and travel industry, the majority of the respondents were from the catering (15.44%), accommodation (14.15%), transportation (14.15%), and retail (6.43%) sectors. The largest number of responses (62.06%) came from small businesses (<50 employees). Most of these businesses (76.2%) had operated for >10 years. More than half (66.24%) of the respondents had a Bachelor’s degree and 18.33% had a Master’s degree.
7.2. Reliability and Validity
Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient normally ranges between 0 and 1. However, there is actually no lower limit to the coefficient. The closer Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is to 1.0. The following rules of thumb are: “α > 0.9 (Excellent), α > 0.8 (Good), α > 0.7 (Acceptable), α > 0.6 (Questionable), α > 0.5 (Poor) , and α < 0.5 (Unacceptable)”. While increasing the value of internal consistency of the items in the scale, based upon the formula
α = rk/[1 + (k − 1)r]
where k is the number of items considered and r is the mean of the inter-item correlations the size of alpha is determined by both the number of items in the scale and the mean inter-item correlations. George and Mallery alpha is partially dependent upon the number of items in the scale, it should be noted that this has diminishing returns. It should also be noted that an alpha of 0.8 is probably a reasonable goal. It should also be noted that while a high value for Cronbach’s alpha indicates good internal consistency of the items in the scale, it does not mean that the scale is unidimensional. Factor analysis is a method to determine the dimensionality of a scale but is beyond the scope of this paper, While In this paper it was the independent variables were examined for collinearity prior to the hierarchical regression analyses. The variance inflation factor (all < 2.0) suggested that the estimated BETAS were well established in the regression models.
7.3. Hierarchical Regression
First, business characteristic variables were used to make sure that they did not explain all the association between predictors and destination competitiveness (Model 1). Second, destination resources were added and activeness (Model 2). Third, then identify the infrastructure and support services in the regression to find out their predictive capacity and their impact on competitiveness (Model 3). Fourth, determining the correlation of factors related to human resources with the competitive direction to know and their future impact on the predictive process of competitiveness. On destination compete factors were added creating Model 4 and, finally, destination business environment was added creating (Model 5), and to investigate the power that each group of the factors explained the Algeria’s destination competitiveness. Use (to obtain coefficients) and ANOVAs (to compute R square and compare models) were run and then check the statistics F-statistics and p-values. Table 5 shows the percentage of the variability in the dependent variable that can be accounted for by the predictors (this is the interpretation of R2) that is whether adding a new variable increases R2 and explains additional variation in the dependent variable. The change in R2 evaluates how much predictive power was added to the model by the addition of another variable.
Table 4 shows that the first model (business characteristics alone) did not predict scores on the dependent variable to a statistically significant degree; they were not significant at the 0.05 level and only
That is adjusted for the number of predictors in the model; S. E.: standard error of the estimate; R2 change show much predictive power was added to the model by the addition of another variable in steps 2 - 5. Sig F change shows if the variable added significantly improved the prediction; Durbin Watson test is a test statistics that detects the presence of autocorrelation in the residuals (prediction errors) from a regression analysis. Explained 0.5% of the change in destination competitiveness (see R2 in Model 1). This means that business profiles had no effect on destination competitiveness. In Model 2 destination resources were added because previous research found a positive relationship between destination competitiveness and destination resources (Bull, 1995; Mihalič, 2013) .
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Table 4. Hierarchical regression data.
1-Predictors: (Constant), educ, business, long, people, gbusiness, lived. 2-Predictors: (Constant), educ, business, long, people, gbusiness, lived, destres. 3-Predictors: (Constant), educ, business, long, people, gbusiness, lived, destres, infrastru. 4-Predictors: (Constant), educ, business, long, people, gbusiness, lived, destres, infrastru, humanres. 5-Predictors: (Constant), educ, business, long, people, gbusiness, lived, destres, infrastru, humanres, busenvir gbusiness, lived, destres, infrastru, humanres, busenvir. Dependent variable: acom. Note: R2 shows the percent of the variability in the dependent variable that can be accounted for by all the predictors together; Adjusted R2 is a modified version of R2.
This increased the explanatory power of the model to nearly 51%. This change was significant at p < 0.001. In Model 3 destination infrastructure and support services were added, based on the reports of a positive relationship between destination competitiveness and infrastructure (Jovanović & Ilić, 2016) . This increased the explanatory power of the model to 64.6%, which was significant at the p < 0.001 level. In Model 4 destination human resources-related factors were added, based on reports of a positive relationship between destination competitiveness and human related factors (Vengesayi, 2003) . Human resource-related factors increased the explanatory power of the model to 64.9% and explained only 0.3% of the change in explanatory power of Model 4. This was insignificant at p < 0.05. In Model 5 business environment was added based on the reports of a positive relationship between destination competitiveness and business environment (Azzopardi & Nash, 2015; Enright & Newton, 2004) . Business environment increased the explanatory power of the model to nearly 67% and explained around 2% of the change in explanatory power of Model.
The change was significant at p < 0.05. The final model accounted for nearly 67% of the variability in destination competitiveness. In summary, destination resources had the largest explanatory power of destination competitiveness, followed by infrastructure and support services and business environment.
Table 5 (coefficient table) shows which variables were entered in each step and also display coefficients for statistically significant predictors. The betas (β) are the weights for each individual’s scores for the independent variables, used to obtain predicted scores for the dependent variable. The results indicate that destination resources (β = 0.692), destination infrastructure with support services (β = 0.904), and destination business environment (β = 0.418) had large significant effect on destination competitiveness. Destination human resource-related factors (β = 0.107) had insignificant effects on destination competitiveness.
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Table 5. Hierarchical regression standardized Beta coefficients and 95% CI.
a. Dependent variable: acom. Note: β (betas coefficient).
The Durbin-Watson test, which detects the presence of auto-correlation in the residuals (prediction errors) from a regression analysis (2.041), closely approximated 2 thus demonstrating there was no autocorrelation. This added to the validity of the regression model.
8. Discussion
The results revealed three main predictor groups of the Algeria’s competitiveness. By looking at the largest absolute values for the standardized coefficients one can conclude that the most important predictors of the Algeria’s tourism competitiveness are infrastructure and support services (BETA = 0.917) followed by destination resources (BETA = 0.602) and business environment (BETA = 0.421). However, by looking at the greatest increase in R2 that each variable produces when it is added to a model that already contains all the other variables one can conclude that the most important predictors are destination re-sources (increase of nearly 47%), infrastructure and support services (increase of nearly 11%) and business environment (increase of about 3%). By using the authors’ subject area expertise it appears that the most important and easy to change and/or improve factors are destination resources and infrastructure and support services followed by the business environment. With regards to the classification of Algeria in terms of indicators, it got (116th), and accordingly, the report issued by the World Economic Forum for the year 2019 showed that Algeria, despite its advancement with two ranks globally, remains the lowest on the level of North Africa. The following are some of the results of the four main indicators for Algeria: main indicator: (Enabling environment) Based on the report issued for the year 2019, we find that Algeria has achieved very weak results in the enabling environment index, and this is due to the work environment index, where it ranked 118 globally, which confirms the absence of the appropriate environment to do a business and the lack of investment in the sector. The Algerian state must remedy this matter by giving more attention to the tourist business environment and to the rest sub-indices that fall within the first key indicator, in order to improve enabling environment competitiveness for tourism and travel in Algeria, and this will not be achieved unless with the intervention of all stakeholders and sectors concerned.
For the second main indicator related to enabling policies and conditions, The previous table shows the results of the second main indicator about policies and Enabling conditions in the tourism and travel sector in Algeria, where we find that the three sub-indicators: Setting priorities for tourism, international openness, and environmental sustainability contributed to the decline and decrease of competitiveness in Algeria by obtaining the ranks 132, 139 and 133 for each indicator, respectively. On the other hand, we find that Algeria has competitive price power as one of the most competitive countries in the world as it is ranked eighth globally. As for the third indicator on the infrastructure: we find that among the most sub-indicators that negatively affected the competitiveness of tourism and travel in Algeria is the indicator for the infrastructure for tourism services, as Algeria ranked 136th in the world, which calls for it to work hard to improve Competition capacity in this indicator, in cooperation with investor in the private sector, to establish tourist and travel rental companies, and it is preferable to be linked globally due to the confidence of the tourists in these companies. To strengthen competitiveness, it is necessary to work with the private sector and with the business and the business leaders to invite foreign businessmen and those who visit them for business to extend their trips to enjoy the country’s tourism potential. Regarding the fourth main indicator related to natural and cultural resources, Algeria ranked 126 in the world in relation to the competitiveness of natural resources. On the whole, it can be said that Algeria abounds with a tremendous amount of natural and even cultural resources, but this is not enough, it needs hard work in order to register a number of natural sites in UNESCO and also improve the quality of nature and work to establish large sports stadiums to host important sporting or recreational events and call for a contract Global meetings, especially since Algeria has established the Conference Palace, which is the largest in the African continent in terms of area, as it sits on a total area of 27 hectares, and this is in order to promote conference tourism, which today is one of the main pillars in the Local product of the tourism sector.
The competitiveness of a tourism destination occupies an important place in the global tourism market (Leung & Baloglu, 2013) and maintaining a competitive advantage. Managing these destinations is essential to studying the tourism industry (Pike & Page, 2014) . The reality of change makes competitiveness a real concept, and for tourism managers, industry players and destinations, the competitive strategies and methods of competition in the global market are important to staying ahead of the competition (Saayman & Du Plessis, 2003) . And sustain a competitive advantage. The reality of change makes competitiveness a real concept, and for tourism managers, industry players and tourism destinations, competitive strategies, ways of competing in the global market, are important to stay ahead of the competition (Saayman & Du Plessis, 2003) . Gaining a sustainable competitive advantage according to Athiyaman and Robertson (1995) requires the continual application of energy and resources to strategic planning and results from decisions and actions, based on concrete research findings. The tourism businesses’ views of the importance of the destination resources in contributing to the Algeria’s competitiveness can be the result of a variety of reasons. The businesses can see the Algeria as a country with a variety of destination resources (Belakehal et al., 2016) . They believe that the country offers a wide variety of cultural attractions (e.g. A vast plateau on the edge of the Sahara, Tassili n’Ajjer contains more than 15,000 cave engravings that record climatic changes, animal migrations, and the evolution of human life, dating from 6000 BCE to the first centuries CE. It is also noted for its eroded sandstone landforms), historical attractions (e.g. Djémila, formerly known as Cuicul, was a Roman town in a mountainous site, comprising a forum, temples, basilicas, triumphal arches and religious buildings and other structures, each adapted to a location, 900 m above sea level. So is Timgad features cardo and decumanus streets, constituting a typical example of Roman town-planning, Established by the Emperor Trajan in 100 CE as a military colony, They are all very ancient monuments), man-made traditional attractions (e.g. The intact, traditional human habitat was built around five ksour of the M’zab Valley in the 10th century by the Ibadites, and Timgad features cardo and documents streets, constituting a typical example of Roman town-planning, Established by Emperor Trajan in 100 CE as a military colony.), and creative industries (e.g. Manufacture of household copper utensils known worldwide in the city of Constantine, arts, crafts, fashion design, film, music), which can be further developed for tourism. They can see the investment opportunity in cultural and heritage places as well as nature-based tourism products, especially nature-based accommodation (McDougall & James, 2006) . Although the majority of the underlying ideas regarding the factors and determinants of destination competitiveness are somewhat similar, these aspects are influenced by the internal and external environment of the specific destination, adding to the complexity and diversity of this research topic. External factors or attributes include amongst others inflation, terrorism and political instability. Whereas internal factors include cultural resources, air transport infrastructure and safety (Blanke & Chiesa, 2013) , an example where research concurs regarding the factors or aspects determining competitiveness is research conducted by Hong (2009) , Crouch and Ritchie (1999) and Hassan (2000) where they all researched comparative advantage as a contributing competitiveness factor; including comparative aspects such as climate, scenery, landscape. There are various examples of researchers agreeing with regards to competitiveness aspects or factors, but there is also a diversity of opinions on this topic, which can differs with regards to destinations and respondents of the conducted research. Authors Heath (2003) and Ritchie and Crouch (2003) provided their own set of factors, not necessarily concurring with other researchers. The tourism products provided by the destinations must be known (Flagestad & Hope, 2001) , because each destination offers unique products and therefore need to focus on different competitiveness factors and models. The first is the basic needs sector, which includes institutions, infrastructure, the macroeconomic environment, health and education. Secondly, performance concerns the quality of education, the efficiency and size of the market, and the finance and technology development. The third sector is innovation. This is how countries earn points in some of these sectors and lose in the others. Regarding tourism competitiveness it was first developed in 2001 by WTTC (WORLD Travel & Tourism competitiveness) a competitiveness index of tourism in collaboration with the University of Nottingham (Khadaroo & Seetahah, 2008) . It is based on eight synthetic indicators that make it possible to assess the performance of each country relative to others. Price competitiveness is one of the major components. Built from an indicator based on hotel prices and purchasing power parity, the price competitiveness indicator ranges from 0 (the least competitive country) to 100 (the most competitive country). At the global level, there is a correlation between income level and price competitiveness: countries with high income levels are the least competitive. But this correlation weakens a lot when we consider the only emerging countries: the lowest income countries are not the most competitive and the most competitive countries go from Ethiopia to South Africa through Brazil. Algeria is in this category among the most competitive destinations, tied with Thailand. Among the Mediterranean countries, it appears as the most competitive country with a score of 91 ahead of Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco (Chaponnière & Lautier, 2014) .
Based on the previous analysis, we conclude that Algeria, has achieved very weak results in the enabling environment index, and this is due to the work environment index, where it ranked 118 globally, which confirms the absence of the appropriate environment to do business and the lack of investment in the sector. The Algerian state must remedy this matter by giving more attention to the tourist business environment and to the rest subindices that fall within the first key indicator, in order to improve enabling environment competitiveness for tourism and travel in Algeria, and this will not be achieved unless with the intervention of all stakeholders and sectors concerned. Despite the tourist attractions it has in it, as discussed in the previous analysis, it will make it occupy a prominent position in the future in the region.
9. Conclusion
This paper takes up the challenge of the relationship between the factors that determine the tourism competitiveness of the Algeria destination from the business perspective. In particular, the purpose is to determine how much each factor explains Algeria’s tourism competitiveness and which factors should be given priority in Algeria’s future tourism development. The aim is to identify the most important factors of Algeria’s tourism competitiveness that tourism businesses could use to prioritize the allocation of their resources, A hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the effects of destination resources, destination infrastructure and support services, destination human resources-related factors, and business environment on Algeria’s tourism competitiveness and assess whether these four major variables explained a statistically significant amount of variance in a dependent variable (Algeria’s tourism competitiveness). On the whole, it can be said that Algeria abounds with a tremendous amount of natural and even cultural resources, but this is not enough, it needs hard work in order to register a number of natural sites in UNESCO. The empirical results show a time-varying correlation between the factors that determine the tourism competitiveness of the Algeria destination from the business perspective, The study supports the argument that destination resources are the core factors contributing to the tourism experience that provides the most fundamental appeal for the potential visitor (Ritchie & Crouch, 2003) , and are the main reasons attracting tourists (Hanafiah et al., 2016) . Environmental sustainability is a part of the destination resources contributing to the destination’s appeal and competitiveness. The study also supports the argument that destination infrastructure contributes to the destination attractiveness (Assaf & Josiassen, 2011; Díaz & Rodríguez, 2016; Khadaroo & Seetanah, 2007) and is an important driver of the tourism industry performance that facilitates the tourist movement, and is an integral part of destination competitiveness. We see that: First, improving infrastructures and air services is fundamental to achieving this goal. The Algerian government and tourism officials must expand the flights and companies operating in each in the sector that serves tourism, as well as the rest of their transport infrastructure, to facilitate access to foreign travelers. Second, The Algerian government must increase the value of their cultural and natural resources by investing in the rehabilitation and maintenance of historic and artistic heritage, as well as environmental protection. Third, developing ICTs is a key issue; especially those oriented to commerce and tourist services and delivered through mobile devices. As Martín, Rodríguez, Zermeño, and Salinas (2018) indicate, “actions must be proposed that promote the competitiveness of the destination, as is the case of the use of new technologies that provide valuable data on consumers in the tourism industry to conduct tourism intelligence”. Last, but not least, it is important to improve and expand on infrastructures for lodging and services to tourists, as well as to allow more flexibility in Algeria to obtain a visa for Tourists. As it is considered one of the most difficult visas the Among visas of the countries of the world. We see that: First, improving infrastructures and air services is fundamental to achieving this goal. The Algerian government and tourism officials must expand the flights and companies operating in each sector that serves tourism, as well as the rest of their transport infrastructure, to facilitate access to foreign travelers. Second, The Algerian government must increase the value of their cultural and natural resources by investing in the rehabilitation and maintenance of historic and artistic heritage, as well as environmental protection. Third, developing ICTs is a key issue; especially those oriented to commerce and tourist services and delivered through mobile devices. As Martín, Rodríguez, Zermeño, and Salinas (2018) indicate, “actions must be proposed that promote the competitiveness of the destination, as is the case of the use of new technologies that provide valuable data on consumers in the tourism industry to conduct tourism intelligence”. Last, but not least, it is important to improve and expand on infrastructures for lodging and services to tourists, as well as to allow more flexibility in Algeria to obtain a visa for Tourists as it is considered one of the most difficult visas among visas of the countries of the world. This may help portfolio managers and investors to implement active investment strategies based on long-term persistence and the current geopolitical information shocks which support sustainable environmental conservation and tourism. And through this study, we found Algeria that it has many elements of tourism capacity that are not known internationally (e.g., of that can be given Treatment with febrile water in Algeria is a tradition that goes back thousands of years. Both the Romans and then the Turks, benefited from these febrile riches, distributed across the entire national territory. A large part of these febrile qualifications, which abound in Algeria, is still as it is, and it is not currently being used). They are characterized by many features and febrile therapeutic properties, and these capabilities represent a solid base for the development of febrile, curative and recreational tourism, which allows competitiveness on the one hand, and provides significant opportunities for investment on the other hand. Future extensions can be envisaged to deeper explore certain points that remain unanswered in the literature (e.g. Linking changing tourism indicators, and the understudied concept of tourism diversification and its unrealized relevance to smart specialization, which has emerged as a mainstream logic underpinning competitiveness). Some methods can be used, such as using more robust methods to infer causality between the variables. The limitations of multivariate modeling represent a good motivation for pursuing research with more robust approaches, such as factorial copula models, and machine learning.