Nonsovereign Countries of The World as Tourist Destinations: Resource Assessment Experience

Abstract

The article presents the experience of scorecard assessment of socioeconomic recreational and tourist resources of 30 nonsovereign (dependent, nonselfgoverning) countries and territories of the world. The choice of a peculiar category of countries, i.e. nonsovereign territories, is due to contemporary trends in the growth of demand for tourist services for unique, specific, and safe destinations meeting high standards. Such territories often have significant recreational potential, which, however, is little known or not known at all for average tourists, and therefore is not in demand. In the course of study, it has been revealed that almost all the analyzed nonsovereign countries of the world offer a wide range of tourist and entertainment services. Among these countries, Anguilla, Aruba, Bermuda Islands, Puerto Rico, and French Polynesia have a particularly developed infrastructure. To carry out comparative analysis and scorecard assessment of the socio-economic recreational and tourist resources of these countries, a scoring matrix was developed that included seven indicators. Each indicator was rated on a five-point scale. Based on the results of the integrated assessment of tourism and recreation resources, all the analyzed nonsovereign countries and territories were arranged into five groups: 1) countries with the lowest characteristics of providing recreational and tourist resources (Wallis and Futuna Islands, Niue, American Samoa, Pitcairn Tokelau, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and the Falkland Islands); 2) countries having medium-low availability of recreational resources (Cook Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, and Norfolk); 3) countries having medium availability of recreational resources (Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla, Saint Helens Islands, Turks and Caicos, and French Guiana); 4) countries having medium-high availability of resources (British and American Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Martinique Island, Reunion Island, French Polynesia, Guam Island, and New Caledonia); 5) countries with high availability of recreational and tourist resources (Bermuda Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba Island, Guadeloupe Island, and Islands of Puerto Rico). For more objective assessment of the recreational provision of nonsovereign countries and territories of the world with recreational and tourist resources, it is necessary to take into account other types and categories of such resources. Nevertheless, the results obtained provide a representative characteristic of the tourism sector’s potential of the main nonsovereign countries and territories of the world, while the methodology itself is applicable for assessing other similar entities of the world political map.