Importance of innovation within the tourism industry as a whole
1. Introduction
Innovation in tourism industry had greatly increased in the last 20 years (Hjalager, 2009, p. 1) and a key competitive advantage for all businesses to survive. Tourism had been an innovative and highly dynamic industry for many years now thanks to the advancement in technology, globalisation, customer oriented, and sustainability (Carvalho & Costa, 2011, p.4). Structure of this report will begin with defining what an innovation is, discussing and analysing the importance of innovation in the tourism industry, and lastly a section explaining the term discontinuous innovation.
2. What is an innovation?
Innovation is necessary for the survival of a business.
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The ability of a company to differentiate itself from their competitor will add values to their products, gain competitive advantage and customer’s loyalty. For instance, Thomas Cook, a worldwide travel agent business is among the first to offer public excursion train in England in the year 1841 which at that time are targeting only corporate people to go for meetings between counties. Today, Thomas Cook Group plc is leading the world in terms of leisure travel groups by selling over £9 billion ticket and recorded more than 20 million customers positioning their business in over 17 countries around the world (Thomas Cook, 2014, para. 5).
A properly planned innovation may also help to reduce operating cost of the business in terms of its labour and energy cost. Labour cost may be save when little training and education is needed in the enterprise in a long term plan hence increase the number of employee satisfaction and employee turnover rate. Energy cost of operating may be cut-off through the implementation of ‘green’ innovation. This will also improve efficiency, productivity, flexibility and flow of goods. By having a high efficiency rate, companies can provide a faster and better preparation methods. In the end this will increase profit and lastly the tendency to survive as an enterprise. Managerial innovation will be an example for this. This type of innovation deals with the human resources in terms of giving them responsibilities of immediate
Tourism has become a commercial business, which has obvious benefits to the said economy, the environment and society. Often, the positive economic impacts persuade governments, companies and individuals to get involved with the development of tourism. Tourism creates jobs, both
Innovation may be linked to positive changes in efficiency, productivity, quality and competitiveness, among other factors. Benefits of innovation could be the improvement in the workforce. By improving the workforce an organisation will benefit from increased productivity and improved morale and lower staff turnover. Employees will feel more valued which therefore increases motivation. This is beneficial to employers because it provides the organisation with knowledgeable, reliable staff who will have a more positive contribution to the needs of the organisation. Staff are a valuable source of innovation, even if it is not expected as a major part of their job. An innovative work environment means being creative and try new techniques. As Albert Einstein said “if you always do what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always got.”
For instance, in the hospitality industry, the Hilton brand symbolises high-end properties, elevated quality of service and a unique guest experience. Brand name and brand image are essentially two factors that differentiate companies which operate in the same industry and market. Therefore, the brand name must be unique. Hotel companies like the Hilton have established strong national brands and seek to use them globally with an intention of increasing profits. Once its established as a global brand, the company has successfully created an international image that can lead to increased efficiency through branded marketing efforts and cost savings on a much larger scale. Nowadays with an increase in international travel, the competition among international hotel corporations is becoming a lot more competetive. Those tourists that travel to foreign countries tend to stay in one of the known hotel brands and their standardised quality of service. Hotel chains are motivated to maintain a high rate of global expansion as a key marketing strategy of creating brand loyalty (King,
Tourism plays a significant role in sustainable development and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Tourism Organization (WTO) wish to encourage all countries to make sure that their policies and actions for its development and management fully embrace the principles of sustainability. Likewise, policies to promote sustainable development should take full account of the opportunities offered by tourism. Various international conventions and declarations have put forward principles and guidelines for sustainable tourism and the importance of tourism and its sustainability was underlined at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. Many countries declare that they are pursuing, or wish to pursue, policies for ‘sustainable tourism’. Despite this interest, there remains a degree of uncertainty over the scope and priorities for making tourism more sustainable and only partial appreciation of how to put this into practice (Making Tourism More Sustainable, 2005).
Globally the tourism and hospitality industry is undergoing and evolving the radical changes. From the past experiences are now advancing at greater pace through faster development of skills and knowledge developed to create and adapt innovation in several ways. Therefore, it is important to have greater understanding of current issues and knowledge in order to cope with future challenges effectively.
In this assignment I will be discussing how innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship contribute to helping Britain remain globally competitive in the business and leisure event industry. Using examples of the events industries and how they have helped Britain develop new products and services for customers.
Tourism plays a vital role in economic development in most countries around the world. The industry has not only direct economic impact, but also significant indirect and influential impacts. There is agreement among experts that the travel and tourism sector is the fastest growing of global economy. According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, international tourism receipts surpass US$ 1 trillion in 2011, growing about 3.8%up from 2010 (WTO, 2012).
Not only innovation lead to change inside organizations, but also some changes in side organizations can lead to innovation. Moreover, managing innovation and change is not an absolute easy process as it seems, as it requires lots of human interaction with different backgrounds, contexts, cultures that require aligning all your human resources to respond to new innovations, and related changes and this will only be done via good and efficient leadership. Generally, innovations and related changes may include change in organization structure workforce planning, marketing strategy, geographical distribution , culture, …ect which directly impact human resources in any organization , therefore the role of the leader is so crucial to manage tensions, conflicts, resistances, uneasiness and development areas that usually appear with new changes and innovations. Leading Innovation and change being part of managing human and organization behaviors is kind of a complex processes that include several factors, stages, models, perceptions and definitely outcomes. In this paper I will get a deep dive and close up view stating the various definitions, different related models, how they work in practical life and what kind of failures such models face in real life implementation; along with a self reflection to the applied experiences of such study and what will be the development plan leading to more successful practices in future.
The industry in which the company operates can be characterized as monopolistic competition. This is because, since there are no barriers to entry in this industry, threats of entry by potential entrants has made the industry some-what competitive. But the brand loyalty gained by the firms through massive advertising has rendered the firms within
Providing an exceptional product or experience to the client which gives an added value may be termed as Differentiation Strategy. Differentiation does not just mean the way the final product shows up or the features it gives, but advancement and imagination may be integrated in everything the organization does from the raw materials to post-sales assistance in a manner that the clients may derive value from it. Considering Theme Restaurants as an example, at present the theme restaurant brand which leads the Restaurant industry with its competitive advantage is Hard Rock Cafe on the grounds that they offer a “Dining Experience” which is found nowhere else and is remarkable in every aspect (Heizer & Render, 2013, pp. 72).
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The following literature is suggesting that how a tourist destination can be analyzed with the help of Butler's Tourism Life Cycle Model. Butler (1980) introduced the concept of the model which clarifies and extends earlier work by, for example, Cristaller (1963), Noronha (1976) and Stansfield (1978). In doing so, Butler clearly links the development cycle of tourism destinations to that of products in the product life cycle model. This is one the best used management framework to know the evolution in a tourism destination as described by Baum (1998), the original Butler's model included:
Competition has became evident and essential in the market of the world’s most important companies. It has allowed consumers to receive ultimate value from the goods and services that they are seeking. In my case study this competition is between two companies that produce ponchos for the fashion industry. The company that we are introduced with is named Tela and their running mate, Saira, is the Goliath of this market. Tela is trying to stay afloat and gain more customers as the underdog. Their plan to reach out to prospective customers is to introduce their new marketing strategy. This strategy includes Tela’s new mission statement which would make consumers aware of their core values and advantages over the Saira. Tela is owned by
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