Most Destinations Fail at Innovation: Current issues in Tourism

Abstract

Tourism accounts for an amazing 11% of global GDP and provides more than 200 million people worldwide a means of livelihood, however current problems which plague tourism highlight a worrying trend of unsuccessful innovation ideas across the world’s destinations. While the industry will continue to grow at the rate of 5% per year, tourism destinations find it difficult to meet customers' fast changing expectations and marketplace demands. Among those challenges are insufficient workforce, climate change impacts, and over tourism. And, in fact, the recent tourism trends show that to get to successful tourism destination one needs to include in a management approach interrogation, technology and sustainability. Fragmented governance models and risk averse decision making has increased the gap between innovative destinations and those who are trying to maintain a traditional approach. This will be followed by looking into why most destinations fail at innovation and what solutions we can answer build tourism innovation ecosystems that work. This analysis provides a comprehensive framework towards tourism innovation towards that of the destination managers and stakeholders’ strategic resource allocation to smart tourism initiatives.