Regional competitiveness and domestic tourism is increasingly important for a sustainable tourism economy at national level. The development of a competitive provincial index for the South African emerging domestic market is under scrutiny/investigation. Provincial competitiveness is a province’s ability to optimize its attractiveness for domestic tourists by offering quality, innovative and attractive tourism services to gain domestic market share, while ensuring that available resources supporting tourism are used efficiently and in a sustainable way. Competitiveness at provincial level will ultimately result in national competitiveness as issues of supply are addressed (at local level). Factors and indicators relevant to selected regions/provinces/destinations are empirically identified through focus groups and a sample of 1065 emerging tourists in eight provinces of South Africa. A Tourism and Travel Market Indicators Index consisting of nine validated factors are proposed that can be used to compare the competitiveness of regions based on factors most relevant to the domestic market.