STARTUP AS AN INDICATOR OF COMPETITIVENESS OF TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY BUSINESSES

Abstract

The paper overviews Ukraine's place in the world rankings during 2019-2021, in particular, such as Global Startup Ecosystem Index, Global Innovation Index, Global Competitiveness Index, World Competitiveness Ranking and Doing Business. The competitiveness analysis demonstrates an improvement of Ukraine’s position in the global rankings during this period, in particular, in terms of innovation activity as well as in the Technology and Knowledge blocks. Quite often, information products emerge as start-ups which then continue to gain popularity and become the unchanging totalizer of the service sector. In the tourism and hospitality business this is evidenced by the large number of start-ups that have been growing in recent years. Businesses are trying to be the first to find such products in order to improve their own competitiveness further enabling them to distinguish significantly from the competitors and, more importantly, to become market leaders with a large number of competitive advantages. The European Union promotes the best travel start-ups in the global level, the Ukrainian Startup Fund deals with startups at the state level. The number of startups in Ukraine has increased significantly over the last 3 years, which, in turn, has ensured an increase in the ranking position by 5 points. Analysis of the results shows positive trends in both the number of key investments and rankings in Ukraine. As to the Ukrainian regional distribution, the leader in the number of startups during last years was Kyiv. Despite the significant number of startups and their funding, which is growing every year, there are a few problems, such as Ukrainian startups are not in great demand, lack of favorable conditions and appropriate organizations, investment attractiveness is very low for platforms in this field, promotion of both the country and regions as tourist destinations is insufficient as well as government support for both the service sector and IT service providers.