Tourism Innovation Research Articles

From niches to regime: sustainability transitions in a diverse tourism destination

Until the end of WW2, the Margaret River region (MRR) was a popular domestic destination based on cave explorations. A series of incremental innovations between the 1950s and 1990s reconfigured the destination into a thriving international tourism destination that offers diverse experiences based on wine, surf, and nature. Nonetheless, contemporary external and internal forces are stimulating another shift – one towards sustainability. Apart from the global pro-sustainability agenda, this sustainability transition in tourism is mainly driven by two emerging niches: eco-accreditation and grassroots organisations. This paper adopts the multilevel perspective (MLP) – a commonly adopted framework in the sustainability transitions research field – and combines it with a typology of tourism innovation to examine the evolution of the MRR as a tourist destination. The paper addresses the ongoing sustainability transition in the MRR and discusses both top-down and bottom-up initiatives that stimulate it. In order to provide a holistic view of this transition, the paper also pays attention to the first transition in the destination (i.e. from caves to wine, surf, and nature), and examines its influence on the ongoing sustainability transition. As such, this paper aims to help bridge the gap between tourism geography and the interdisciplinary field of sustainability transitions.

Use case modeling in a research setting of developing an innovative pilgrimage support system

With so much confusion around use case modeling, software developers may be reluctant to apply it. However, use cases are easy to apply and have great benefits even in research settings with nonprofessional software developers involved. We report on our experience on this within an innovative tourist information system developed in a research setting of an ongoing Horizon 2020 project named Promotion of Rural Museums and Heritage Sites in the Vicinity of European Pilgrimage Routes (rurAllure). The resulting use case model comprises forty use cases supported by class diagrams, use case diagrams, sequence diagrams, as well as by the domain model and dictionary. Three quarters of use cases have been implemented at least to some extent. Writing use cases provoked intense communication, which helped consolidate the system architecture. The use cases helped validate and better understand the GUI form wireframes designed beforehand and get quickly to a consistent implementation of the system that can be experimented with further in different ways. Finally, the forthcoming extensive system and user experience testing will be guided by the use case model. The paper also exposes the domain model and dictionary along with selected use cases and the hierarchy of user and system actors, which may be useful as such or as a stimulus for the development of other innovative tourist information systems.

Unveiling the dynamics of open innovation and collaborative network tourism in ASEAN nations

ABSTRACT This research investigates the interplay between open innovation and social capital in Southeast Asia's tourism sector. Focusing on the mediating role of open innovation, the study explores its impact on integrating external ideas into tourism while enhancing social capital through collaborative networks. Through surveys, interviews, and case studies across Southeast Asian nations, the research aims to unveil strategies for open innovation in tourism and how social capital contributes to sustainable growth. The findings will inform stakeholders, governments, and scholars on fostering innovation while preserving the region's cultural and socioeconomic distinctiveness, ultimately aiming for a resilient and sustainable Southeast Asian tourism sector.

ATiTHi: A Deep Learning Approach for Tourist Destination Classification using Hybrid Parametric Optimization

A picture is best way to explore the tourist destination by visual content. The content-based image classification of tourist destinations makes it possible to understand the tourism liking by providing a more satisfactory tour. It also provides an important reference for tourist destination marketing. To enhance the competitiveness of the tourism market in India, this research proposes an innovative tourist spot identification mechanism by identifying the content of significant numbers of tourist photos using convolutional neural network (CNN) approach. It overcomes the limitations of manual approaches by recognizing visual information in photos. In this study, six thousand photos from different tourist destinations of India were identified and categorized into six major categories to form a new dataset of Indian Trajectory. This research employed Transfer learning (TF) strategies which help to obtain a good performance measure with very small dataset for image classification.VGG-16, VGG-19, MobileNetV2, InceptionV3, ResNet-50 and AlexNet CNN model with pretrained weight from ImageNet dataset was used for initialization and then an adapted classifier was used to classify tourist destination images from the newly prepared dataset. Hybrid hyperparameter optimization employ to find out hyperparameter for proposed Atithi model which lead to more efficient model in classification. To analyse and compare the performance of the models, known performance indicators were selected. As compared to the AlexNet model (0.83), MobileNetV2(0.93), VGG-19(0.918), InceptionV3(0.89), ResNet-50(0.852) the VGG16 model has performed the best in terms of accuracy (0.95). These results show the effectiveness of the current model in tourist destination image classification.

УПРАВЛІННЯ РОЗВИТКОМ МІЛІТАРІ ТУРИЗМУ В УКРАЇНІ

Purpose. The aim of the article is studying the experience and substantiation of prospects for the development of military tourism in the post-war period in Ukraine and managing of its development. Design/methodology/approach. In the process of the study, the general scientific and special methods of scientific cognition were used, which allowed taking a comprehensive approach to the solution of the setted goal. The dialectical method of cognition was used in order to study and detail the object of study. The methods of comparison, analysis and synthesis were used to consider military tourism. The systemic and abstractly-logical methods were used to identify the main trends in the development of military tourism. Findings. The scientific article is devoted to the study of the prospects for ensuring the management and development of the industry of military tourism in Ukraine. It is noted, that the war in Ukraine demonstrates destructive socio-economic and environmental consequences in the form of large-scale destruction of settlements and their infrastructure, transformation of civilian objects into the defence installations, the emergence of new landscape formations during hostilities, the remains of projectiles and destroyed equipment, the large-scale human burial places, etc. The attention is drawn to the prospects of turning these phenomena into the one of resources of the post-war restoration of Ukraine in the form of integrating them into the tourism industry as a military-tourist product and historically-cultural heritage. The research has been carried out of the foreign practice of effective implementation of this perspective.It is noted, that the potential tourist flow requires the development of a concept of the development of tourism industry in the vector of innovative quality for Ukraine – military tourism. The attention is drawn to the achievements of the scientists in studying the idea of “military tourism” in the form of use of various military facilities in tourism, which is explained by the desire and curiosity of people to visit places associated with the most important battles, events that changed the course of history, places of great trials and human grief. Summarizing the suggestions of the scientists, the author’s vision of the definition of military tourism is proposed. The types of tourism have been diversified for military-historical, military adventure and military event-based. A key problem in the development of military tourism is the lack of management model, in particular, an organization that would exercise control of the quality of services and safety in the sphere of military tourism. Practical implications. In order to maximize the economic benefits of the development of military tourism, it is proposed to identify risk factors, affecting the industry, and to develop the possible means of mitigating their consequences. A dual causal relationship has been found between the geopolitical risks present in the countries and the number of tourists and the financial revenues from tourism. The conceptual directions have been developed of management of the sphere of military tourism in the post-crisis period, among which the basis is to achieve a “sustainable result”, which includes not only “reconstruction” to the previous state, but also “a leap forward” through training, transformation and growth. In particular, it has been determined that the permanence of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises will depend on the personal psychological stability of managers and their attitude to a staff of an enterprise. It has been proposed to apply a differentiated approach to the development of the sphere of management of these enterprises in the directions of financial, organizational and psychological support. Originality/value. The value of the research lies in the establishment and analysis of the cause-and-effect relationship between the opportunities for the development of the socio-economic system. An effective tool for the practical implementation of this concept in practice is the model of creating a new tourist product - an innovative tourist cluster, which involves the unification of state administration bodies, enterprises, societies, higher educational institutions, and public organizations for the purpose of synergistic cooperation.

Cultivation Mode of Innovative Tourism Talents in Colleges and Universities

With the continuous improvement of people's living standards in our country, tourism has entered the stage of prosperous development, and tourism economy has become an important part of our country's economic system, and presents a growing trend every year. In such a big market for tourism talents under the background of growing demand, as important way of talents training in university, not only to train talents with professional experience in theory and practice of tourism, but also has the corresponding innovative thinking and ability, flow of high-quality innovative talents for the society, to promote the sustainable development of the tourism market in our countryg. Tourism plays a very important role in promoting urban construction and economic development. However, in terms of the current urban tourism development and the protection of historic districts, the lack of scientific, reasonable and overall planning is obvious, which hinders the effective development of urban tourism. Firstly, many cities have developed their historic districts by imitating and relocating them, and some have even adopted tourism resources that do not belong to them. Secondly, in the process of tourism resources development, the city realizes the local advantages and values of historic districts, so it adopts large-scale development and utilization of historic districts.

Art-based religious tourism after the pandemic: innovations in sustainable tourism or return to precrisis business models?

ABSTRACT This research investigates whether and how the supply of and demand for art-based religious tourism changed after the pandemic. We examine the effects of the pandemic on the business models of Italian Fabbricerie. The analysis investigates whether the pandemic has impacted visitor flows in quantitative (e.g. the number of visitors) and qualitative terms (e.g. the type of visitors) and the emergence of new market segments. We examine whether the restrictions due to the health emergency and the resources supporting the cultural sector have changed these organizations’ cost and revenue structure and generated new costs or revenues. Finally, we focus on the strategies implemented to unveil whether cultural offerings changed and to understand the role of new digital tools or communication channels in responses to the pandemic. Our results thus contribute a better understanding of cultural organizations’ business models and the pandemic’s impact on the value they generate for visitors and other stakeholders.

New advances in science mapping and performance analysis of the open innovation and tourism relationship

The number of scientific publications studying open innovation (OI) and tourism has increased since the first concept appeared. Nevertheless, there is still a gap regarding the science mapping and performance analysis of these two concepts. Although there are studies that focus on open innovation and tourism, few are studying the relationship between themes. We aimed to address this gap by reviewing the literature and searching the Scopus database using R. Bibliometrix. We identified 45 published articles between 2010 and 2022, covering 23 sources and 130 authors. The results indicate a strong collaboration network among authors. Open Innovation, Tourism, and Sustainability are the trend topics, as well as the three main keywords. The emerging topics are “open innovation in tourism”, “service innovation” and “overtourism”. Keywords, trend topics, and emerging topics can be valuable guides for researchers and help them decide which path to take in their studies in this field. This paper is a starting point for carrying out further research that relates OI to other areas of tourism, such as smart tourism or smart tourism destinations, which are highlighted in some of the most recent articles that were under this study.

Innovation in Local Products as a Tourist Attraction in East Nusa Tenggara Province

Tourism as one of the priority programs of the NTT government continues to strive to improve services and diversify tourism products, one of which is local-based products which are a tourism attraction for tourists who are looking for souvenirs as gifts when finished traveling. The application of innovation is a way that must be taken to keep the tourism business away from competition between tourism businesses, threats of unattractive products and failure to face tourism business obstacles. This research was conducted using a qualitative approach to the creative industries of Kupang City which are engaged in the business of native NTT products that are sold to tourism destinations as souvenirs. The results of this study indicate that the application of innovation that has been carried out is divided into 5 namely: product innovation, process innovation, managerial innovation, management innovation, and institutional innovation. Of the 2 innovation models, process innovation and product innovation are the innovations most often carried out to market locally based products.
 Keywords: Tourism Innovation, Tourism Products, Local Souvenirs, Creative Industries

Heha Sky View: Role Model for MSME Partner-Based Tourism in Yogyakarta

This research is a qualitative descriptive method, revealing brilliant ideas, building a tourism business strategy: partnership with Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Data collected by interviews, discussions, observations, and secondary data. Visited by 15,000 people in one day during peak season, Heha Sky View (HSV), located on the hillside of Patuk, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, offers beautiful views, sunset, very aesthetic of various selfie photo spots, the mountains, and culinary delights. Street food stalls, affordable prices, provided by 25 MSME units connected by skybridge. The community around as a buffer zone is also the vision of the HSV owner. Benefits for MSMEs, communities, multiplier effect trades, and transportation. Capital of 10 billion rupiah as a ROI for 4 (four) years, MSMEs caring, empowering, and benefiting stakeholders. HSV should be a role model for the tourism business. The formulation is to make natural and artificial scenery as well as innovation tourism, quickly returns capital, and sustainable. It is advisable for actors in the tourism industry to emulate such role models to assist micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The government is anticipated to facilitate tourism industry participants by offering diverse licensing amenities, enabling businesses to be established in different locations.

Do Size and Ownership Determine the Willingness for Sustainable Innovations in Spa and Health Tourism? A Case Study on Baile Felix Spa Resort, Romania

There is a considerable debate in the literature regarding the real impact of tourism on the environment and human communities, specifically with respect to tourism’s openness to sustainable innovation. The way in which the different forms of tourism and entrepreneurial and managerial initiatives respond to the new economic, technological, social and environmental challenges acquire considerable importance for academics, practitioners, decision makers and consumers. The purpose of this research is to assess the potential for sustainable innovation in spa and health tourism in a relevant area in Romania through a survey-based study of both entrepreneurs who own a tourist accommodation unit, as well as top and middle managers from large tourism enterprises. The results of our research show that the development of spa and health tourism offers multiple examples of good practices, and that stimulating innovative entrepreneurial initiatives can lead to a sustainable reinvention of the tourism and local economy, in line with the international health tourism market. In the case of small businesses, even though sustainable initiatives are present, they are at an earlier stage and are less diversified compared to hotels, the scope of innovation is smaller and their motivation weaker. In other words, a large part of the objectives of modernization and sustainability in spa and health tourism (equipment, services, qualification and hiring of employees, sustainable and environmentally friendly orientation) are the responsibility of large hotel resorts. This research provides valuable insights into the ongoing debate surrounding the impact of tourism on the environment and local communities, with a specific focus on the potential for sustainable innovation in spa and health tourism within a significant region of Romania.

Community Participation in Coastal Tourism Innovation in the Nusa Penida Region, Klungkung Regency

Tourism in the Nusa Penida region has witnessed a substantial surge in visitor numbers since 2017, with a remarkable increase of 10.23% compared to the previous year, maintaining an average growth rate of 19.11%. Tourism development plays a pivotal role in generating income for the local tourist destinations and has a positive impact on the neighboring community. This study draws upon several foundational theories, including participation theory and community-based tourism theory (Perkins & Zimmerman, 1995). The study's findings reveal that the local community has taken the initiative to repurpose unproductive land into tourist attractions, diversify their livelihoods, engage in collaborative ventures, conserve both natural and cultural resources, and innovate in promoting the region's tourism potential. The community's involvement is at the Tokenism level, where communication between the government and the community is active. The community willingly participates in various businesses and workforce activities, requiring only infrastructure and financial support. Tourists have a favorable perception of the local community's involvement in innovating Nusa Penida's tourism development, categorizing it as highly participatory. This is evident in the community's effective contribution to transportation, accommodation, and service provision, which they have executed proficiently.

Sentimental Value on Medical Tourism: A Social Congruence Theory Perspective

Medical tourism is a trip abroad that is carried out by someone whose aim is to get health care, both general check-ups, treatment and rehabilitation. The most popular destination countries for medical tourism are India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. The number of Indonesians who travel to neighboring countries to get medical services is quite large. The number of Indonesian patients who go to Malaysia is 70% and Singapore is 65% of the total international patients undergoing treatment in the country. In general, people who undergo medical tourism are people who have more economic capacity. Medical tourism or often referred to as medical tourism is a new tourism innovation or a health service program in the form of health maintenance, improvement and recovery packaged in the form of tourism activities. This study aims to determine the effect of functional values, hedonic values , and sentimental values on behavioral intention in the medical tourism sector. This research uses a quantitative approach with online surveys. The analysis tool used is Structural Equation Modelling Partial Least Square with a sample of 100 respondents for patients visiting middle to upper-class hospitals for examination or treatment or rehabilitation of their health after or suffering from illness in Indonesia and Malaysia. The results of this study indicate that functional values and hedonic values affect sentimental values, and functional values, hedonic values , and sentimental values affect behavioral intentions. So, it can be concluded that all relationships between variables are influential and significant.

Research on driving factors and mechanism of Minority Village tourism development in Guizhou Province, China1

The fundamental purpose of tourism destination development is to improve the quality of life of local residents. For the minority areas in Guizhou Province in China, tourism development can achieve good ecological, economic and social benefits. This research is aimed at to exploring the key driving factors which can improve the quality of local destinations. On the basis of literature analysis and to visit many villages, 8 variables are found, which are tourism resources, tourism location, tourism development environment, tourists’ preference, tourism stakeholders, tourism products, tourism innovation and the development tourism destination. 19 hypotheses are proposed and a theoretical models is established. Through the sequential mixed method of qualitative phase and quantitative phase and model test with SEM, it is found: 1) all factors have significant positive effects on the development of rural tourism destinations. 2) The primary factors driving the development of rural tourism destinations are CTR, TL and tourism innovation. 3) Most factors interact with each other to drive the development of minority tourism destinations. Finally, according to the research results, combined with the current situation of the development of rural tourism destinations, the study puts forward suggestions and prospects to promote the development of rural minority tourism destinations.

Menggali Potensi Pariwisata: Inovasi Pariwisata dalam Meningkatkan Pendapatan Asli Desa

This article aims to describe efforts to increase village revenue by harnessing the tourism potential in Negeri Latuhalat, Ambon City. This research employs a qualitative research approach with in-depth interview techniques and direct observation to gather data. The research findings indicate that Negeri Latuhalat possesses natural, cultural, and historical wealth that has not been fully utilized for tourism development. Through the analysis of existing potentials, infrastructure development efforts, the design of sustainable tourism programs, and active engagement of the local community, it is anticipated that Village Original Revenue (VOR) can be significantly enhanced. This article outlines specific steps that can be taken to implement tourism innovations aimed at creating positive impacts on the village economy and local community. Consequently, this article provides crucial guidance for policymakers, business actors, and academics interested in advancing the tourism potential and village economy in Negeri Latuhalat and its surrounding region.

Effect of Fear on the Interrelationships of the Domains of Destination Image

COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered fear, has affected the tourism industry globally, and Philippine tourism was not an exception. Gen Z travelers, an underexplored generation, are seen to play a key factor in tourism innovations. Further, destination image in the context of COVID-19 pandemic has not yet been widely explored. This study aims to investigate the effect of Filipino Gen Z’s COVID-19 fear on their perception of cognitive, affective, and conative image. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) revealed that Gen Z’s COVID-19 fear did not have a significant effect on destination image. Significant positive relationships among the destination image components were proven. Affective image mediated the relationship between cognitive and conative images. The study contributes to the limited studies on Gen Z’s and their destination image perception during the pandemic. It encourages organizations and marketers to focus on Gen Z travelers to form positive destination image during the pandemic.

Fostering Urban Destination Prosperity through Post COVID-19 Sustainable Tourism in Craiova, Romania

In accordance with the 2030 Agenda, the prosperity of tourist destinations holds a crucial role in the sustainable development of urban areas. Tourism represents an imperative solution in transitioning from survival to success after the COVID-19 pandemic. The stakeholders in the field should introduce new tourism forms that enable a more comprehensive strategy for managing and developing responsible tourism, bringing into focus new skills, resources, and levels for change to develop resilience, urban community satisfaction, and the unique intrinsic attraction of each tourist destination in Romania. This study develops a model of prosperity for urban tourist destinations, which can be applied to medium-large cities in Romania. We propose for the city of Craiova the use and identification of four spheres of sustainability, which in turn have a set of 17 indicators. The research method used to determine the indicators has two stages: (1) the analysis of the specialized literature to identify the appropriate indicators for an urban destination and (2) statistical analyzes and interviews with internal stakeholders (residents), which present their tourist perspective of the city. This article tackles an innovative concept, called prosperity and innovation in Craiova tourism, which can be implemented in all tourism niches and brings new development perspectives that correspond to the norms of sustainable development and their direction towards sustainability. The article addresses the concept of prosperity in tourism and contains information about: the definition of prosperity, the concept of prosperity (an engine of innovation in tourism and its implications), but also perspectives for a prosperous tourism policy in Craiova tourism.

Big Data Utilization on Tourism Marketing in Post-Pandemic Recovery Ear: Future Prospect for Indonesia

Along with the behaviour changes toward digitalisation in the pandemic, reliable data to manage tourism marketing in Indonesia is needed. The study objectives are to go into detail on the application of big data and identify what kind of data is necessary for tourism marketing based on the previous research. Most studies about big data on tourism marketing come from overseas, with only a few from Indonesian authors. Questions were raised on what big data is used in tourism marketing and what data is needed, mainly for Indonesia. The use of big data and the kind of data for the benefit of tourism marketing in this study has yet to be discovered. The study adopted SLR with the PRISMA approach and continued with bibliometric analysis using VOS Viewers based on keywords and co-occurrence. Scopus is a database source, and 105 articles published from 2002 to 2022 are found. There are six clusters from plotting extensive data application networks. Two forms of big data can be gained to foresee tourism marketing in post-pandemic recovery. The utilisation cluster is the consumer behaviour research, technology operation, social media, future prediction based on network sentiment analysis, and innovation in smart tourism. Data from the tourism industry and non-tourism sector can be utilised. The study implied combining both the tourism and non-tourism sectors as integrated big data in tourism marketing for decision-making in the future.
 Keywords— big data; marketing; non-tourism; tourism; utilization

Research on Innovative Development Mode of Integration of Ceramic Culture and Ancient Town Tourism

This study aims to deeply explore the role of ceramic culture in ancient town tourism innovation, and the impact of integration and innovation development mode on ancient town tourism innovation. The paper used a wide range of data analysis methods, including frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, reliability and validity analysis, correlation analysis, independent sample T-test, analysis of variance, parameter estimation, and mediation analysis, to test three main hypotheses. Firstly, the direct impact of ceramic culture on ancient town tourism innovation is verified (H1). The results show that ceramic culture has a significant positive effect on the ancient town tourism innovation. Secondly, explore the intermediary role of ceramic culture and ancient town tourism innovation integration and innovation development mode (H2). The data analysis results show that the integration and innovation development model mediate the relationship between ceramic culture and ancient town tourism innovation to a certain extent, but the mediating effect is relatively small. Finally, the author analyzes the direct influence of other factors on the ancient town tourism innovation (H3). The research results strongly support this hypothesis, indicating that other factors have a significant positive impact on ancient town tourism innovation. To sum up, this study provides important insights for ancient town tourism innovation, highlighting the promoting role of ceramic culture, integrated innovation development mode and other factors on ancient town tourism innovation. The research results provide valuable guidance for tourism managers and policy makers to promote and support tourism innovation in ancient towns.

Connecting Integrated Tourism Networks Post COVID-19 Scenario with Geoinformatics Innovation in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province for Thai Tourists

Adapting to survive the post-COVID-19 pandemic is challenging for tourism and hospitality businesses. Government agencies play a significant role in assisting entrepreneurs in overcoming crises. The objectives of this study were to examine the situation of the tourism industry in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, develop integrated tourism innovations utilizing geo-informatics technology to connect tourism networks and evaluate the satisfaction of tourism innovations. This study utilised mixed research methods. The study instruments consisted of an open-ended questionnaire and in-depth interviews to examine the state of the tourism industry in the region, the ArcGIS Online software for developing innovations in geospatial tourism, and an online questionnaire to assess satisfaction with innovation. The questionnaire results were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The sample group for the satisfaction evaluation was comprised of 410 Thai tourists. The results of the study found that 1) there was a problem with the lack of connection of tourism database systems within the province, making it difficult for tourists to access information, 2) innovations developed to become a central database that collects information on tourism businesses sectors in the prototype area and interactive data analysis tools for users at any time and 3) the satisfaction assessment results indicated that tourists were satisfied with the database.