This diploma thesis deals with the benchmarking method and its practical use in continuous process of destinations' competitiveness enhancement. It describes the importance of tourism for destination's development and increasing need of its management, in order to become more competitive. Revealing the key factors of success that are created by destinations' competitive advantages enables destinations to keep or even to strengthen their position on the international tourism market. The main goal of the thesis is to apply the benchmarking method as a tool for an analysis and comparison of selected competitiveness factors of the Czech and Slovene tourist destinations from the Austrian tourists' point of view. Based on the analysis results, the particular competitive advantages of the Czech Republic and Slovenia are determined and commented.

A high concentration of automotive industry in the Czech economy and its dependence on exports to Germany could be compared to a poorly diversified investment portfolio. At the time when the manual-labor-intensive industries move to countries with a lower labor costs and even stable German economy is losing pace of growth, it is necessary to consider how to support the competitiveness of the Czech economy and ensure sustainable economic growth. The work deals with the question whether a greater focus on the financial sector and with a strong collective investment market may be a possible solution. Author seeks to find the answer thru analysis of this industry and its impact on the domestic economy of the countries with the largest collective investment fund market. The analysis did not prove the initial assumption that the intensive development of the collective investment market in the country will significantly help to grow HPD. However, given the strong correlation between the volume of assets under management and HPD some kind of connection cannot be excluded. A multiplying effect on the other industries is only average, on the other hand the analysis of the competitiveness indicators showed the strength of the industry.

This thesis deals with the influence of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the competitiveness of the selected region in the Czech Republic. Thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the competitiveness and FDI in general. The chapter gives a definition of competitiveness and describes localization factors and effects of FDI on the host economy. The second chapter focuses on foreign direct investment in the Czech Republic. It outlines the historical development of FDI, their territorial and branch structure and the government support of the FDI inflow. The third chapter describes the Moravian-Silesian region as an investment location and analyzes the impact of FDI on the competitiveness of the region. The analysis is comprised of a comparison of FDI development and the development of selected macroeconomic indicators.

This thesis examines current problems in eurozone with special focus on international trade. An important part of the research will be the impact of the economic crisis which came to Europe in 2008. First chapter describes the development of eurozone's exports and imports between years 2001 and 2011. It analyses changes and trends in the commodity and territorial structure of eurozone's foreign trade. Some important issues which are linked to these topics are discussed in the first chapter as well, including current bargaining for bilateral free trade agreements. Second chapter deals with macroeconomic imbalances between the northern and the southern part of eurozone. It tries to identify reasons which caused this problem and assesses the role of euro in it. Finally, it offers some possible ways to adjustment between the both country groups. Third chapter concerns with the competitiveness of eurozone's members and measures how it has changed since the beginning of the crisis. In the second part of this chapter, selected weaknesses of the Italian competitiveness are stated together with a comparison with Germany. Final summary recapitulates previous chapters and presents the most important findings.

The subject of this diploma thesis is "Analysis of the competitive enviroment of the spa services in Luhačovice". The main aim of the thesis is comparison of spa services of different spa facilities operating in Luhačovice and choose the best provider of the services. The PEST analysis was used for reaching the main aim which included political, economic, social and technological indicators that influenced most of businesses in spa tourism. The another step was to analyse internal competitive environment of Luhačovice. It means that chosen spa subjects are analysed and then the strongest and best current provider of spa services is determined. The final part of the thesis is focused on recommendations for maintaining position and increase the competitiveness of the best provider.

The topic of this thesis is the analysis of export opportunities for the tomotherapy irradiator TOMOS. The first part of the thesis addresses new emerging methods of radiation therapy focusing on the research and development of tomotherapy irradiator in particular and the availability of radiation therapy in the world in general. The second part of the thesis provides financial analysis of the tomotherapy research and development project which is executed to evaluate the effectiveness of the project as an investment. Finally, the thesis concludes with the proposition of the most convenient export strategy indicating the perspective territories for trading the tomotherapy irradiator together with the most influential factors for each territory considered.

This diploma thesis deals with the importance of tourism for a group of states which includes Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. The aim of this thesis is to identify the importance of tourism to the economy and to interconnect it with the competitiveness of those countries in tourism via an analysis of the current situation in tourism and via analysing the effects that tourism has on these economies in the past last five years. The first chapter explains the most important terms concerning the subject in theory. The next chapter introduces tourism within the PIGS economies and the third chapter is devoted to tourism competitiveness of the southern EU countries and creates a predicition of their future development in tourism.

The diploma thesis deals with New Zealand's economy and position in the international tourism market. The aim of the thesis is to analyse macroeconomic indicators and evaluate position of New Zealand in the international tourism market along with assessment of competitiveness in both areas. Firstly, the thesis evaluates economic situation of New Zealand and its competitiveness. A comparative analysis of selected macroeconomic indicators with chosen countries from the region Asia and Pacific is also provided. Secondly, the thesis focuses on tourism in New Zealand, its characteristics, main destinations, attractions and the latest statistics along with the evaluation of competitiveness and position in the international tourism market. Finally, the thesis describes problematic areas and current policies of tourism in New Zealand, and mentions its possible future development. The findings are presented in SWOT analysis.

The diploma thesis discusses the island state of Mauritius, especially from the point of view of the macroeconomic situation and in terms of analysis and description of international tourism. The first chapter considers the theoretical foundations of international tourism, the world economy and the problems of developing countries, particularly small island developing states. The second chapter describes the island of Mauritius and its historical, geographical, social and political characteristics. The third chapter deals with macroeconomic characteristics of the island. In this section the main points rank the structure of the economy, indicators of economic performance, as well as the conditions for investment and also evaluation of the competitiveness of the economy. The fourth part reflects Mauritius as an important destination of international tourism. The island's economy is very dependent on international tourism. This chapter describes its characteristics, structure, focusing on inbound tourism and future trends of tourism. Diploma thesis concludes with a chapter on the comparison of the competitiveness of tourism in Mauritius and Seychelles.

The thesis analyzes competitiveness of the Czech manufacturing industry in the context of global value chains using data from the OECD TiVA database in years 2000, 2005, 2008 and 2009. The main aim of this work is to highlight the importance of global value chains and outline how the Czech Republic can increase its added value within them. In order to fulfill this objective, the theoretical part explains the importance of global value chains in modern manufacturing industry. In the practical part, five selected industries of the Czech manufacturing sector are compared with the respective industries in Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Germany and Sweden using indicators of the added value and productivity of production factors. The last section describes the implications and recommendations for the Czech Republic.