Measuring nature tourism firms’ productivity

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. This paper constructs two measures of productivity of nature tourism firms, i.e., labour productivity and total factor productivity, and compares firms’ performance across NUTS II regions in mainland Portugal, during 2014-2017. Using data from SABI, Quadros do Pessoal, INE and the National Tourism Registry, the sample comprises 369 firms, representing 55% of firms operating in nature tourism in the mainland. Results show that the levels of TFP, contrary to labour productivity, are very uneven over time and space. In 2015, all regions experienced a negative increase in the TFP, except the Metropolitan Region of Lisbon, which seem to indicate that nature tourism firms in this region are more productive and resilient to external shocks.