Service experiences and innovation in the hospitality industry

Abstract

The increasing demand for unique and memorable experiences is forcing tourism firms to develop distinct value-added provisions. Innovation is a crucial mechanism to create value by transforming services into more compelling and unique experiences to exceed guest’s expectations. Traditional and current research consider the tourism industry as a mere technology adopter as well as a ‘non- knowledge-intensive service’, which has led to an underestimation of its innovative potential. However, from a management perspective, innovating on the attributes of the service experience can make tourism experiences memorable, as well as improve business performance. Literature on the experience economy suggest that in service experiences, innovation takes place in four distinct design areas: physical environment (product innovation), service delivery process (process innovation), back office support (organizational innovation) and marketing activities (marketing innovations). Given the lack of research addressing these issues in tourism, the main objective of this study is to better understand the multidimensional nature of innovation in the experiences of services provided by hospitality companies. To do so, and after the literature review, a statistical analysis is based on the EU’s Community Innovation Survey was developed. Based on an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) of 1913 enterprises in NACE-2009 classification Sector I (Accommodation and food service activities), two major contributions are made: First, the identification and relationship between innovation areas and service experience attributes. Second, the identification of the dimensions of innovative service experiences in the hospitality industry: marketing, organizational and the combined component service-process innovation.