REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS AND THE PRODUCTIVITY PERFORMANCE OF GAZELLES IN

CULTURAL TOURISM

Abstract- The extant literature reports evidence that the economic performance of regions is driven not
by the stagnant majority but by a minority of high-growth firms (HGFs), the so-called gazelles. Regional
competitiveness depends on firms’ long-term competitiveness, which depends on labour productivity.
Cultural tourism plays a crucial role in national and regional policies because it allows to engage local
communities in its activities and provides them a source of income. This paper identifies HGFs operating
in cultural tourism in 2014-2018 and analyses their labour productivity across Portuguese regions,
relating them with the regional competitiveness. The regional distribution of gazelles in Portugal is
uneven, with the Lisbon region concentrating 48%; the Northern region is the location of 26%; while the
Centre and Alentejo regions capture 13% of gazelles. Results on Pearson correlations between labour
productivity and changes on the Regional Competitiveness Index (RCI) uncover significant negative links
between HGFs average labour productivity and changes in regional competitiveness. However, the results
suggest that gazelles have significantly contributed to regional competitiveness through productivity, in
2014-2015. Finally, some suggestions on strategies for promoting cultural tourism are presented.

Keywords: Competitiveness, Cultural Tourism, High-Growth Firms, Labour Productivity, Regional Policy

1. Introduction

Since the 1990’s there was a shift of focus away from the competitive advantage of nations to the
competitive advantage of regions, due to the recognition that competitive advantage is a local process
(Porter, 1990). Because raising the standards of living is only possible by increasing productivity, regional
competitiveness can be defined by the level of regional productivity (Ketels, 2003). Following Gardiner et
al. (2004), in this paper is assumed that competitiveness is the sum of the performances of all firms in a
region and thus regional productivity is measured from aggregate regional firm-based micro-data and is
regarded as an indicator of the revealed regional competitiveness. However, the literature on industrial
organization shows that a handful of firms, experience very rapid growth or very rapid decline, while most
firms do not grow. As a result, it has been suggested that the dynamics of industries is driven not by the
stagnant majority, but by a minority of discrepants (Bottazzi et al., 2002: 720). HGFs provide evidence of a
region's competitiveness and dynamism, potentially contributing to economic growth and job creation (Acs,
2011; Bos and Stam, 2014; Coad et al., 2014; Daunfeldt and Halvarsson, 2015).
Portugal is currently facing a slowdown in productivity growth and, as productivity growth is the main
source of differences between countries regarding per capita income, there has been a slower
improvement in living standards. In fact, after 1993, labour productivity growth began to decelerate
gradually, recording an annual growth rate of 1.2% by 2014 (Alves, 2017). Therefore, labour productivity
diverged until 2003 with the EU core, and until 2007 with the G7.
Tourism is a prevailing instrument for regional development, by its potential as a source of value creation
and through multiples effects on areas of reference (Engelstoft et. al., 2006; Botti et al., 2008). In addition,
tourism activities have the potential to affect economic growth and thus the regional inequalities through its
impact on regional technological change or productivity change (Marrocu and Paci, 2011) and the impact
on income distribution through tourist expenditures, especially if tourists exhibit preferences for higher

quality goods (Nicita & Olarreaga, 2007; Haddad et al., 2013; Ribeiro et al., 2017). Moreover, tourism
has a drag effect on sectors related to travel (accommodation, food, communications, etc.) and other
services (business, health, leisure). It encourages the production of food based on local products and the
use of local means production in tourist areas (Iordache et al., 2010). In Portugal, tourism has a significant
positive impact on regional growth, and it is a source of convergence. In addition, in some regions of
Portugal, such as Algarve, Madeira and Azores, tourism is a key source of employment (Soukiazis and
Proença, 2008).
The globalization and the increased competition in tourism, since the 1980s, cause a shift of focus of
tourism policies from demand to supply. In particular, the increase of the productive capacity calls for
improvements in quality and efficiency (Iordache et al., 2010). However, even though tourism plays an
important role in many countries worldwide, in the national accounts it is not measured as an independent
sector, since it involves different sectors, such as transport, accommodation, tour operators, travel
agencies, visitor attractions, and retailing (Song et al., 2012). As a result, and because there is no
available information on prices and quantities needed to estimate the value added, it is difficult to measure
the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and the contribution of tourism to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This
difficulty has been partly mitigated by the emergence of tourism satellite accounts, relying on financial data
to make comparisons both at sectoral, regional, national and international levels.
Within several types of tourism, cultural tourism enables tourists to experience other people's way of life in
their natural environment (Richards, 2011). It also allows tourists to experience authentic cultures through
the combination of nature, folklore, dances, rituals, tales, handicrafts and hospitality. It provides unique
insights into the way of life of the people (Pasape et al., 2014). Even more important, from the economic
point of view, cultural tourism is regarded as an important mechanism of poverty alleviation ( Jun-feng,
2019; Long, 2019; Xiang and Feng, 2019; Yang et al., 2019). Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that
firms operating in cultural tourism can play an important role on income generation and, ultimately, on the
competitiveness of regions, defined as the ability to offer an attractive and sustainable environment for
firms and residents to live and work (Dijkstra et al., 2011). Indeed, if competitiveness is regarded as very
closely related to productivity, then higher competitiveness may raise the living standards (Birnie et al.,
2019).
In this context, the performance of HGFs operating in cultural tourism, is of particular relevance to
ascertain their role in the economy and suggest regional policy measures. Indeed, since HGFs’ resources
vary from region to region due to their differing resource endowments, economic structures, and business
environments (Mason and Brown, 2013), it is necessary to adapt the best policy to support specific
regional characteristics. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to identify HGFs operating in cultural
tourism in 2014-2018 and to analyse their labour productivity across Portuguese regions, relating it to
the regional competitiveness. The reason is that productivity measurement has been acknowledged as
being a key indicator for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the tourism sector. However,
until recently, the role of productivity in achieving competitiveness has been ignored in the regional
competitiveness literature regarding tourism business. Thus, using data from the National Tourism
Registry, SABI, PORDATA and the European Commission, this paper identifies 23 gazelles out of 4,802
firms operating in cultural tourism.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the rationale for the link between
HGFs and regional competitiveness; section 3 describes the data. The territorial distribution of labour
productivity in tourism is analysed and discussed in section 4; and section 5 provides the concluding
remarks.

2. HGFs, productivity and Regional Competitiveness

There are several definitions of HGFs, also known as gazelles (Lopez-Garcia and Puente, 2012; Clayton
et al., 2013; Daunfeldt et al., 2014; Haltiwanger et al., 2014; Daunfeldt and Halvarsson, 2015), although
the OECD definition is becoming more widely adopted even if it is often challenged. Therefore, HGF is "a
firm with annualized average growth (in number of employees or turnover) of over 20% per year over a
three-year period with a minimum of 10 employees at the beginning of the growth period" (OECD, 2008:
61).
In the academic and policy grounds, there has been a significant interest in the characteristics of HGFs,
since the seminal work of Birch (1981). Accordingly, policymakers all over the world aim to contribute for
an environment prone to effectively sustain and foster the development of HGFs that generate a large
amount of jobs (Storey, 1994).
Despite cross-country differences, there are some stylized facts regarding HGFs (Henrekson and
Johansson, 2010): 1) a small share of firms become HGFs; 2) HGFs cover all sectors (Schreyer, 2000); 3)
HGFs are mostly young firms; 4) there is a low persistence of HGFs (Delmar et al., 2013; Daunfeldt and
Halvarsson, 2015); 5) small HGFs tend to grow organically, while large HGFs grow through mergers and
acquisitions; 6) HGFs are more intensive in R&D (Segarra and Teruel, 2014; Coad et al., 2016); 7) HGFs
usually export more than other firms (Parsley and Halabisky, 2008; Mason and Brown, 2010); 8) HGFs
show greater internationalization and integration into global value chains (Mason and Brown, 2010; Du and
Temouri, 2015); 9) HGFs are better endowed regarding human capital than their rivals (Daunfeldt et al.,
2015).
There is limited discussion of the link between HGFs and productivity. One of few exceptions is Acs
(2011). With US data for 1998-2002, they compare statistical means between high- and low-impact firms,
and find that, in general, HGFs have higher labour productivity than low-impact firms. Bravo-Biosca (2010,
2011) uses data for 12 OECD countries, for 2002–2005, to test the relationship between TFP growth and
the dynamics of the growth distribution. Results show that the share of growing and shrinking firms is
associated with faster productivity growth. In particular, the greater the share of firms that remain static,
the lower the productivity growth observed. Thus, the author suggests that a reason for Europe’s lower
productivity is having a larger share of static firms. Mason et al. (2012) examine UK firms. Using static and
dynamic decomposition estimates of labour productivity growth changes, over the period 1998–2007, they
show that HGFs experience large productivity growth, but their contribution to the aggregate productivity is
limited.
Daunfeldt et al. (2014) investigate whether HGFs, defined in different ways, are equally important to the
growth in different economic output variables, namely productivity. Using correlations according to
Shepherd and Wiklund (2009) methodology, and data for Sweden, in 1997-2010, they find that HGFs
contribute largely to TFP growth. Du and Temouri (2015) investigate the empirical link between TFP
growth and HGFs. They focus on the UK for the 2001-2010 period. Quantile regression analysis shows
that HGFs tend to enjoy faster TFP growth. The study of Haltiwanger et al. (2016) evaluate if HGFs
contribute to output and productivity growth. The authors perform decompositions of industry level
productivity growth for US firms, in 1976-2013. Results indicate that HGFs contribute greatly to output and
productivity growth. Fornaro et al. (2017) analyse the productivity contribution of Finnish firms in the
business sector and assess the role of the dependency status. They decompose the productivity growth
using Maliranta (2003) methodology, for 2002-2014. They find that dependent firms provide a larger
contribution to aggregate productivity growth, compared to the independent ones, regardless of the
industry, size and age. Guillamón et al. (2017) investigate the interactions between high growth episodes
in terms of size and productivity in Spain, for 2002-2012. The results, using fixed effects, indicate that firm
size increases the likelihood of high growth in productivity. However, the effect from size to productivity is
 smaller than the effect from productivity to size. Turnbull and Richmond (2018) compare the performance
of Scottish HGFs with other UK regions, regarding high-growth performance, for 2013-2016. The statistics
show that HGFs in Scotland contribute less to productivity growth than those in other parts of the UK.
Finally, Grover (2019) studies HGFs in Ethiopia, in 1996-2009. Using the Levinsohn-Petrin (2003)
methodology to estimate plant-level TFP, the author concludes that past high-growth experience is
significant and positively associated with subsequent growth in firms’ productivity.
Diverse features of tourism activities have revealed different spatial impacts. Also, the magnitude of the
impacts is different in various places and over time (Romão and Nijkamp, 2019). Thus, the need to
establish the regional context in which HGFs emerge is crucial to explain differences in growth across
regions and design measures of regional competitiveness. Accordingly, regions are emerging as key loci
regarding economic policy deliberation and action (Kitson et al., 2005).
In turn, with regard to regional competitiveness, this can be defined as a region's ability to attract and
retain companies and, simultaneously, promote a higher standard of living than the population (Budd and
Hirmis, 2004). Figure 1 shows the notion of competitiveness founded on the pyramidal model (Lengyel,
2004; Gardiner et al., 2004), which organises the impact factors of processes affecting labour productivity,
employment and welfare. The model identifies the interconnected factors that drive regional
competitiveness (Pike et al., 2006).

Figure 1 - The renewed pyramidal model of regional competitiveness

Target
(outcomes)

Revealed
competitiveness

Competitiveness
factors

Success
determinants

Source: Adapted from Lengyel (2012)

According to the previous figure, it can be seen that regional competitiveness is based on four pillars,
where the quality of life of the population is the final objective, resulting from the improvement of the
immediately previous components: (i) basic competitiveness, which results from the productivity of the
labour, employment ratio, regional performance and gross regional product; (ii) competitiveness factors,
namely research and technological development, human capital, productive capital and FDI, traded
sectors and clusters and social capital and institutions; and (iii) determinants of success, including here
base resources but with long-term effects such as economic or social structure, infrastructure or skills of
work force among others.

3. Data

Data sources come from the National Tourism Registry, SABI, PORDATA and the European
Commission.
The initial research of cultural tourism firms in National Tourism Registry (RNAAT) delivered 6,485 touristic
agents. Subsequently, there was a need to collect financial data from the SABI database financial reports.
However, since SABI does not provide financial reports of entrepreneurs, 1,683 tourism agents were
withdrawn. As a result, 4,802 firm reports were obtained. Applying the OECD definition of gazelles, i.e.,
firms with at least 10 employees and turnover growth rates of at least 20% in 3 consecutive years, 23 firms
were identified as HGFs. Table 1 shows the spatial distribution of sample firms. Nearly 50% of gazelles are
located in Lisbon area, followed by the Northern region that concentrates 26% of gazelles.

Table 1- Sample of firms by NUTS II region

Region # firms
North 6
Centre 3
Lisbon 11
Alentejo 3
Total 23
Source: Authors’ ellaboration

Based on the methodology developed by the World Economic Forum, the European Union measures the
competitiveness of regions using the Regional Competitiveness Index (RCI) (Žitek and Klimova, 2015).
RCI clusters a large set of variables into 11 pillars of growth drivers that describe both inputs and outputs
of territorial competitiveness (Annoni and Dijkstra, 2019). The pillars are grouped into three sub-indices,
which are basic (five pillars), efficiency (three pillars), and innovative (three pillars) factors of
competitiveness (Koišová et al., 2019). The basic pillars in RCI include Quality of Institutions,
Macroeconomic Stability, Infrastructure, Health and the Quality of Primary and Secondary Education. The
efficiency pillars include Higher Education and Lifelong Learning, Labour Market Efficiency and Market
Size. The innovation pillars include Technological Readiness, Business Sophistication, and Innovation.
RCI values are published at three-year intervals (2010, 2013, 2016).

4. The territorial dimension of tourism: exploratory spatial data analysis

To understand the dimension of tourism in Portugal, and the differences among regions, the following
graphs show the evolution of changes in turnover, labour, labour productivity and regional
competitiveness, over 2014 till 2018. To this aim, labour productivity is calculated as the ratio between
turnover and the number of employees at firm level.
Figure 2 - Changes in Turnover across NUTs II regions

350

28
300 19
21 North
250 49
45 46
Changes in Turnover

200 34 20
Centre
217 31
111 54
150 149

Lisbon
100
166
133 12
50 106 32
67 Alentejo
29
0
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Years

Analysing figure 2 the following facts emerge: 1) every year the turnover per region is growing, showing
the relevance of gazelles in cultural tourism in Portugal; 2) to Lisbon region the annual growth is more a
less constant, while to the Centre region the huge growth of turnover was in 2014, to the North region in
2017, and to Alentejo in 2018; 3) in 2018, Alentejo register an annual growth of 149 % with only three
companies.

Figure 3 - Changes in Labour across NUTs II regions

 450
400
147
350
300 23 North Centre
Changes in Labour

250
200 357

150 271 Lisbon Alentejo

100
50 1
4
1 11 24
0 25 9
-14 -8 -18 -7
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
-50
Years

Figure 3 shows the change in labour over the years, per region. Results are similar to those of change in
turnover. Lisbon have similar change in turnover over 2014-2018, while the North region has the major
increase in labour in 2017, the Centre region in 2014, and Alentejo in 2018.

Figure 4 - Changes in average Labour Productivity across NUTs II regions

400

350

300

250

200

150

100

50

0
2014 2016 2018

North Centre Lisbon Alentejo

Regarding changes in average labour productivity (figure 4), Alentejo has the highest labour productivity,
with only three companies, comparing with the other regions. Lisbon, which has almost 50% of the total of
the Portuguese gazelles exhibit a similar change on average labour productivity over the periods, being
the second region with smaller productivity growth. This fact suggests that the concentration of more firms
does not contribute to an increase in productivity, may be because firms are more static, going in line with
Bravo-Biosca (2010, 2011). The Centre region is the region with smaller labour productivity growth.
However, it has only 3 gazelles.
Figure 5 - Changes in in Regional competitiveness across NUTs II regions

0.15

0.1

0.05

2.77555756156289E-17

-0.05

-0.1

-0.15
2014 2016 2018

North Centre Lisbon Alentejo

Finally, figure 5 shows the changes in the regional competitiveness over the years, where large regional
asymmetries are evident. Alentejo is on a countercyclical when compared to other regions, since the
highest change in regional competitiveness was achieved in 2014, while to the other regions was in 2018.
In 2016, all regions exhibit negative changes in regional competitiveness. A possible explanation lies in
the decrease in investment in innovation in R&D activities, which, according to PORDATA, was decreasing

in the period 2009-2017. In addition, expenditure on health infrastructure (another indicator of

competitiveness) presented in 2016 the lowest value since 1995, according to data from PORDATA. It
should also be noted that in 2018, the northern region and the Lisbon region were those that showed the
highest rates of regional competitiveness, which is in line with the recommendations of the European
Commission, that the capitals and metropolitan areas are the main drivers of competitiveness of the
countries.
The results of Pearson correlation between labour productivity and changes on the RCI uncover a
negative (-0.2056; p<0.05) link between the average labour productivity and changes in regional
competitiveness. However, the analysis disaggregated by year shows that gazelles’ labour productivity is
significantly and positively (0.1680 and 0.3180, p<0.05) related to changes in regional competitiveness, in
2014-2015. This suggests that productivity in tourism firms that exhibit higher growth rates of turnover
impacts positively on regional competitiveness in some years.

5. Conclusions and Policy Implications

Achieving regional competitiveness, with its potential of prosperity for residents, is a central feature of
tourism policy debate. Promoting the competitiveness of the territories and reducing the economic and
social differences that exist between the regions is currently a key point in regional development policies.
Tourism competitiveness is a general concept that encompasses several factors such as productivity
levels of various components of the tourist industry, and qualitative factors affecting the attractiveness of a
destination (Dwyer et al., 2000). Thus, productivity measurement has been raising increasing interest in
academia and recognized as critically important, since it is an important indicator for understanding the
strengths and weaknesses of the tourism sector. Yet, the role of productivity in achieving competitiveness
has been ignored in the regional competitiveness literature regarding tourism business (Blake et al., 2006).
One possible explanation, at least in part, is that tourism industry has different challenges regarding
productivity, being often reported as having low productivity when compared to other industries. This paper
attempts to fill the gap in the literature by identifying HGFs operating in cultural tourism in 2014-2018 and
analysing their labour productivity across Portuguese regions, relating it with the regional
competitiveness. Indeed, the only important concept of competitiveness at the national level is productivity
(Porter, 1990; Krugman, 1997). Along the lines of Porter (1990) and Delgado et al. (2012) highlighting the
key role of productivity measures in assessing competitiveness, this article posits a productivity measure
associated with regional competitiveness- the labour productivity of tourism firms.
Results show that annual increases in labour productivity and regional competitiveness are not related with
the number of firms, since Alentejo region show high increases in productivity and regional
competitiveness in 2018, even if the number of gazelles is only 3, which can also be explained by the fact
that gazelles develop an economic activity with a high capital/labour ratio. Moreover, labour productivity is
negatively related with regional competitiveness in the last years. Although this relation was the inverse in
2014-2015, which can be explained with the recovery of the Portuguese economy from the international
financial crisis of 2007/2008, that had a major impact on 2010 in the Portuguese economy. Thus, in line
with the pyramidal model (Figure 1 above), the results for the period 2014-2015 suggest that gazelles’
productivity can contribute to regional competitiveness. This outcome is also according to the new
European enterprise policy that aims to promote firms’ competitiveness in order to promote investment,
innovation, human capital, internationalization and productivity growth. At same time, the awareness by
governments and regional authorities of the potential of cultural tourism as a strategic factor of regional
development and job generator has invigorated its growth. Consequently, the European Commission
supports actions towards raising the potential of cultural tourism as a means of hindering over tourism,
while increasing its positive effects on regional development (European Commission, 1995). However,
cultural tourism is characterized by often-unpredictable trends that can be partially explained by the
symbolic values and beliefs that are passed on by generations. In this context, cultural attractions become
an exceptional way to respond to the need for diversification, i.e., alternative options and new experiences.
It is the interest in the experimental and the exceptional that shapes the extreme selectivity' used in
choosing tourist destinations. That is the reason why the traditional cultural attractions that possess
several possible itineraries still have a substantial advantage over any new proposals. As a result,
strategies for promoting cultural tourism assuming for certain that tourists will embrace any new cultural
itinerary must be discarded. Accordingly, tourist sites away from principal routes or those stripped of the
classic tourist attractions (such as beaches and monuments) can achieve economic development by
promoting a tourism niche focused on the restoration and preservation of their patrimony and heritage.
Thus, these places must invest on marketing campaigns and adapt or redesign specific products to appeal
tourists with cultural interests towards new destinations.

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