Innovation in Tourism Organisations: Facilitators and Barriers

1
Innovation in Tourism Organisations Facilitators
and Barriers

• BEST Education Network Think Tank VII
• Margaret Deery and Leo Jago
• Centre for Hospitality and Tourism Research
• Victoria University

2
Background

• Importance of innovation to industry
• Difficulties in innovation adoption in the
  Australian tourism industry
• SMTEs
• Dissemination of knowledge products
• Many time poor, risk averse businesses

3
Innovation ProcessCooper, Jago, Carlsen and
Ruhanen, 2006)
4
Barriers to the Adoption of Innovation

• Barriers to the adoption of innovation by SMTEs
  (Hwang and Lockwood, 2006)
• Particularly effected by the changes in tourist
  demand
• Seasonality
• Limited resources human and financial
• Lack of skilled labour
• Lack of internal and external market intelligence
• Location of the SMTE

5
Case Studies STCRC Innovative Tourism Products

• Industry Performance Analyser for Tourism (IPAT)
• industry identified a need to be able to
• monitor performance over time
• compare performance to similar businesses
• IPAT developed for use in a range of different
  sectors. It is
• a computer program that resides on a remote
  server
• enables users to input a small number of key
  performance variables
• Allows an immediate comparison of business
  performance over time
• if sufficient number of other similar businesses
  can compare with these

6
Case Study IPAT

• Evaluation of the use of IPAT (Scott and Breakey,
  2007)
• operators state it is useful but
• It needs operator buy-in and continuing support
  
• Lessons for the facilitation of innovative
  products
• there needs to be a government or industry
  champion
• operators require considerable nurturing,
  mentoring to adopt new products

7
Case Study Encore Festival and Event Evaluation
Kit

• Background to the kit development
• Applications and adaptations of the kit
• Limited uptake of the kit due to
• Changes in staff and lack of familiarity with the
  kit
• Lack of ownership of the kit
• Lack of research skills

8
Conclusions

• Adoption as important as innovation
• Enhance techniques for adoption of innovation
• Focus on high performers
• Champions to demonstrate