Social innovations in tourism: Analysing processes, actors, and tipping points

Abstract

Social innovations consist of new forms of cooperation of individuals or organisations and they provide new solutions to societal problems. They typically evolve along three phases and have the potential to solve region-specific challenges. In the operating phase, social innovations can overcome the so-called tipping point. The tipping point is an elusive moment at which the social innovation can begin to spread or at which it could also fail. To examine the social innovation characteristics that contribute to overcome tipping points and to identify the role and motivations of actors to participate in the process of developing social innovations in tourism, we applied innovation biographies to seven social innovations in a Swiss mountain region. Data were drawn from 29 interviews with the involved actors. Our results show that social innovations in tourism that overcame the tipping point fulfil three conditions: First, new actors join the social innovations in the operating phase. Second, all the actors involved benefit from the social innovation for their own business strategy. Third, the social innovation is accepted in the region and among the actors involved and therefore does not face strong headwinds. Furthermore, developers, supporters, and promoters are important throughout the entire social innovation process. The findings suggest the need for a more comprehensive understanding of innovations in tourism that incorporates the complexity of different actors involved.