Developing a Tourism Innovation Typology

Abstract

Innovation has become a buzzword, regularly cited to convey any improvement made, regardless of the extent of newness. Tourism innovation has historically been viewed as either incremental or radical, a binary developed within manufacturing. However, given that incremental improvements are the norm in the tourism sector and that radical innovation is an abnormality, the binary is not representative of tourism innovation. We suggest a three-level typology, based on field research in Europe and Australia, and informed by Rogers’s innovation diffusion model; the concept of liminality and its role in the search for tacit knowledge through weak network ties; and the need to ask ultimate (why) rather than proximate (what, how) questions. Since the term innovation is overused, we introduce three alternate concepts: the “artist,” who is comparable to the innovator; the “artisan,” who represents early innovation adopters; and the “painter,” who epitomizes the early and late majority.

Keywords

innovation liminality artist liminal innovation typology

Introduction

Innovation, derived from the Latin noun innovatus meaning renewed or changed, has become a buzzword which organizations cite any time they have made modifications to their existing offerings. From a business perspective, these “new” improvements are designed to stimulate increased spending and growth. Yet the term’s use does not necessarily signify that the changes made to a previous concept are monumental or far from the norm. Often, the improvements are only minor. According to a Wall Street Journal report (Kwoh 2012), the word innovation was mentioned 33,528 times in annual and quarterly reports filed in 2011 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to Amazon.com, 255 new books published within a 90-day period in 2012 contained innovation in the title (Kwoh 2012). Clearly, the concept is chaotic (Decelle 2004, p. 2) and difficult to interpret in practice given its semantic stretch (Heath and Heath 2008). Baregheh, Rowley, and Sambrook (2009) documented 60 distinct definitions for the term in a content analysis of literature from the fields of economics, innovation and entrepreneurship, business and management, and technology, science, and engineering. They concluded that innovation has many different definitions that align with the respective disciplines’ dominant paradigm. In other words, innovation is contextual.

From a business perspective, innovation entails introducing novel concepts that are potentially valuable to both new and existing customers that differentiate an organization (Drucker 1985; Feeny and Rogers 2003; Ottenbacher and Harrington 2007; Tidd and Bessant 2009) for a limited period of time. It revolves around the capacity to accept, adapt to, and capitalize on change (Kanter; cited by Hall and Williams 2008, p. 5). For Schumpeter (1934), innovation implied originality, as applied to a new product, process, market, supplier, or organizational structure.

The level of novelty in relation to change has been considered by many researchers as either incremental or radical, depending on whether it has occurred within or departed from existing practices (Abernathy and Clark 1985; Hall and Williams 2008). This common binary has appeared in various forms, including competence enhancing–competence destroying (Tushman and Anderson 1986); evolutionary–revolutionary (Carayannis, Gonzalez, and Wetter 2003); sustaining–disruptive (Christensen and Bower 1996); continuous–discontinuous (Bessant 2005; Porter 1985); minor–major (Utterback 1994); small i–capital I (Day 1994 ); incremental–breakthrough (OECD 2010); and directional–intersectional (Johansson 2004). These dualisms suggest that one approach is positive while the other is not (Grosz 1989). Given that these binaries originated within manufacturing, radical innovation has been seen as more valuable than incremental innovation (Christensen 1997; Foster and Kaplan 2001) in stimulating business growth. However, radical innovation may not be appropriate within service industries (Zach 2012 ), as small changes fit better within existing organizational structures. This type of innovation is also not readily apparent within the tourism sector (Brighthouse 2012; Brooker 2011; Chan, Go, and Pine 1998).

Other binaries also appear in tourism research to represent basic divisions between the ordinary and the extraordinary (Urry 1990, p. 11), self–other, host–guest, and work–play. Their acceptance is underscored by the research presented in three leading journals: Journal of Tourism Research, Annals of Tourism, and Tourism Management. Our content analysis of abstracts contained in these journals for the period from 2007 to 2012 found that 84 papers used binary opposites to frame their stance. We, however, argue that past use of binaries has contributed to a misunderstanding about what innovation entails. In other words, since radical innovation is rare, any change has been deemed innovative. A broader framework, based on tourism’s characteristics, is required to clearly delineate distinct innovation approaches. We present a three-level typology, supported by Taleb’s (2012) observation that “just about anything that matters can be mapped or classified into three categories” (p. 20). It acknowledges the critical role played by “liminal” innovators, a hybrid of incremental and radical styles. The concept is informed by Rogers’s (2003) diffusion model that positions true innovators at one end and laggards at the opposite extreme of a curve. Since the term innovation is overused and the role of innovator therefore misunderstood, we broaden the discussion by introducing the “artist,” who is comparable to the innovator; the “artisan,” who represents early innovation adopters; and the “painter,” who epitomizes the early and late majority (Rogers 2003).

Various stakeholders, including individual operators, organizations, and national systems could utilize the proposed framework for meaningful benchmarking. The model would further address the current inconsistency in defining innovation and clarify how it occurs, where it occurs, and most importantly, why it occurs (Crouch 2013). The proposed typology is based on an extensive review of the innovation literature, both within and external to the tourism sector, and on field research in Australia and Europe. It is informed by Rogers’s (2003) innovation diffusion model; the anthropological concept of liminality (Turner 1974; Van Gennep 1909); and Crouch’s (2013) observation that researchers have to date focused on proximate questions that address how systems operate rather than on ultimate questions (Saad 2007; Kenrick, Maner, and Li 2005) that seek to identify why a particular behavior has evolved to its current form (Saad 2007, p. 8). We argue that four specific factors affect innovation levels (Brooker et al. 2012) that depend on whether a potential innovator (1) asks ultimate “why” questions rather than “what” or “how” (Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen 2011); (2) purposefully searches for tacit knowledge; (3) seeks out liminal experiences; and (4) maintains an external rather than internal perspective. Our intent is to show how these factors result in three distinct innovation levels.

The paper is structured as follows. We initially review the concepts of liminality and innovation within the tourism sector. We then explain the field methods that we used to explore innovation within tourism and to identify a radically incremental level of change. Our findings and discussion outline the three innovation levels that arose from our study, which we have named the painter, the artisan, and the artist. We elucidate their unique characteristics and the reasoning behind the separations. Our paper therefore innovatively presents a new typology for tourism innovation.

Literature Review

Liminality

The anthropological concept of liminality (Turner 1974; Van Gennep 1909) personifies the tourist’s experience of voluntarily escaping his or her regular routine to temporarily dwell in a new location to relax, recreate, and rejuvenate. The interval “betwixt and between” leaving home and eventual returning is a threshold during which existing norms may be replaced by disorder, antistructure, and experimental behavior. Turner (1974) defined liminality as “any condition outside or on the peripheries of everyday life” (p. 47), a counter to daily living that potentially allows people to discover their true self (selves) (Graburn 2001; Preston-Whyte 2004; Wickens 2002). Reality is replaced by the abstract, as nonordinary behavior in liminal spaces affects how people dress; what they eat, drink, and feel; and how they sleep, act, and play. Liminality shifts emphasis from focusing on self to sharing experiences with others (Chambers 2001) and results in hospitable interactions that create a sense of belonging. Distinctions between individuals and outside social status are reduced, leading to an egalitarian situation (Preston-Whyte 2004; Shields 1991). Essentially, the codes of conduct that govern ordinary home life are negotiable while away (Yarnal and Kerstetter 2005).

Liminal tourism experiences occur in hotels (Pritchard and Morgan 2006), resorts (Shields 1991), and campgrounds (Foley and Hayllar 2007; Ryan and Kinder 1996); on cruises (Yarnal and Kerstetter 2005) and vacations (Weichselbaumer 2012); and during travel (Cohen 2003; Noy 2004). In the case of yacht charters in the British Virgin Islands, Lett (1983) noted that individuals on holiday were more apt to engage in uninhibited liminal behavior, such as sexual relationships with strangers. Hedonism hotels in Jamaica actively leverage this scenario, promoting themselves as locations where there are no rules, apart from dropping one’s inhibitions (Pritchard and Morgan 2010).

The relationship between sex tourism and liminality has received significant attention from tourism researchers. Ryan and Martin (2001) explored (predominantly male) tourists’ interest in strip clubs. Berdychevsky, Poria, and Uriely (2013) developed a taxonomy focused on female tourists’ liminal sexual behavior. In her exploration of female sex tourism in Trinidad and Tobago, Weichselbaumer (2012) attributed the sexual interaction between white, Western, middle-class, female vacationers and Caribbean men to the role reversal inherent in the carnivalesque atmosphere. Graburn (1977), however, cautions that the extent to which individuals change or invert their normal lifestyle lies on a continuum from minimal to radical and reflects individual character. This insight is equally applicable to liminality’s role in innovation development.

Several conceptual gaps exist in tourism literature on liminality (Chambers 2001; Yarnal and Kerstetter 2005). These include the impacts tourists have on each other as they socially interact (Yiannakis and Gibson 1992); the impacts on employees, who themselves are in a liminal situation; and the role that spaces play in creating liminal experiences. To this we add an additional gap in tourism research—liminality’s role in the procurement of tacit knowledge and how this knowledge can affect tourism innovation. We address this gap in our findings and discussion.

Innovation within the Tourism Sector

Tourism is a demand-driven concept, representing personal quests for leisure, entertainment, knowledge, and adventure, among many other motivations. As a sector, it is defined by the industries that facilitate these motivations for travel, and that need to work seamlessly together to deliver the overall experience. At the same time, they need to adapt to rapid changes in behavior and expectations. Innovation within a tourism context suggests purposeful adaptation to or shaping of change (Hall and Williams 2008, p. 236) to ensure that the sector evolves and contributes to society in meaningful ways. This represents an enormous challenge for small, independent, family-owned businesses that constitute most operators.

Innovations do not need to be new to the world, a country, or a sector. They could simply be new to a company, a particular market segment, a business unit, or even to a single person (Hoelzl, Pechlaner, and Laesser 2005; Jones 1996). Tourism operators tend to be risk-resistant, preferring to stick with tried and true ideas and to target repeat visits through customer satisfaction (Morrison, Carlsen, and Weber 2010). Most innovations in the tourism sector are therefore incremental improvements or adjustments to an existing situation (Dewar and Dutton 1986) that are designed to improve performance, increase efficiency, and where possible, boost short-term profits (Brooker 2011). In these cases, the operators employ reactionary actions to achieve personal and business goals that maintain rather than grow their business (Ateljevic 2009; Hall 2005; Morrison and Teixeira 2004). Rarely are the innovations proactive changes that inspire a broadening of purpose. Still, many improvements are achieved, whether it is by a bed and breakfast inn that creates its own social media presence, a café that introduces a new menu (Hall and Williams 2008), or a destination marketing organization that promotes itself in new ways. These types of modifications occur from within the system, and are targeted towards existing customers. As Crouch (2013) notes, these operators rely on proximate questions: “What” do current customers want? “What” are competitors offering that can be imitated? “How” can customers be reached in new ways?

Radical innovation, by contrast, introduces the next new idea that disrupts current conventions. The innovator, usually an outsider, is unconcerned with an industry or sector’s traditional thinking and prefers to focus on why customers make certain purchases and, equally importantly, why noncustomers do not. Radical innovations target new customers with unique value propositions that had not previously been operational. For example, Thomas Cook broke with conventional thinking when he created a comprehensive concept that consisted of travel and entertainment components for a new customer segment, and an efficient organizational framework that facilitated the provision of affordable services (Brendon 1991). Club Méditerranée built the all-inclusive concept, now ubiquitous in sun destinations (Poon 1998). Other advances include Disney Corporation’s theme parks that appeal to both local and global audiences (Weth 2007). Ray Kroc, of McDonald’s, transformed the organization of food service provision (Love 1986). Starbucks revolutionized the coffee café market, an industry that had seen little change in fifty years (Rindova and Fombrun 2001).

Rogers (2003) asserted that innovators who generate truly fresh ideas comprise only 2.5% of a population. They rely on early adopters to emulate their novel concepts and increase the likelihood that their ideas will be acceptable to others. Representing a further 13.5% of the population, early adopters are often industry leaders who use their own instincts, knowledge, and risk tolerance to adopt the novel idea(s) without waiting to hear what their peers think. They are the first to introduce new ideas to their sector. The remainder wait, some adopting an innovation more quickly than others, albeit after careful consideration. Laggards reluctantly adopt the concept last. Rogers’s diffusion model, though, also points out that each group needs the other. Innovators need imitators to adopt their new ideas in order to establish their credibility, while imitators need innovators to be creative and take risks.

Although several challenges preclude smaller tourism enterprises from innovating, such as having minimal capital, skills, training, or marketing support and information (Ateljevic and Doorne 2004; Brás, Costa, and Buhalis 2010), knowledge is what lies at the heart of innovation (Baum, Calabrese, and Silverman 2000; Cooper 2006; Pikkemaat 2008; Powell and Grodal 2005) and its potential successful implementation (OECD 2010). Generally, the majority relies on codified knowledge that include benchmarking information, standards, and explicit how-to information that are easily transmitted through strong network ties. Rogers (2003, p. 19) refers to such relations as homophilous (between those with similar beliefs and mutual understanding), although many operators augment the knowledge derived from these relationships with information generated by industry and government bodies, trade magazines (Cooper 2006), and more recently, social media (Hardy, Hanson, and Gretzel 2012). Few tourism organizations have a research and development department or other resources dedicated to innovation (Hjalager 2010) that can gather new information on trends, which may influence future opportunities. Brooker and Joppe (2013) described innovation levels as now, new and next, that is, incremental, liminal, and radical. They further found that insiders have limited awareness about new and next innovations that could be introduced to their sector, confirming that strong social ties generate incremental improvements. A key barrier to innovation development is the limited inclination of many tourism business operators to collaborate with and learn from others, both locally and more widely (Sørensen 2007).

To enhance both their own and their sector’s business performance, innovators gather tacit knowledge through weaker social ties and connections with representatives from other geographic or sectoral contexts (Sundbo, Orfila-Sintes, and Sørensen 2007; Whittington, Owen-Smith, and Powell 2009). The broader interaction provides them with access to new information, knowledge, and resources. Proprietors who are active in weak business networks (Granovetter 1973) or heterophilous communication channels (Rogers 2003) gain tacit knowledge by being exposed to ideas that are inconsistent with existing beliefs. They use these insights to better understand how to innovate. However, the tourism sector generally does not absorb or manage tacit knowledge well (Cooper 2006), preferring to recirculate knowledge (Sørensen 2007).

Information derived from weaker knowledge networks can compensate for an organization’s relatively limited internal resources in areas such as technology, financing, and business skills (OECD 2010). Furthermore, weaker ties are beneficial given the insignificant knowledge transfer between academics and practitioners (Cooper 2006; Williams, Stewart, and Larsen 2012), a situation also found in other service sectors (Tether 2005). Hjalager (2010) contends, however, that innovation does occur within the tourism sector, although it results more through the spill-over and spill-back effects of supplying industries than through tourism enterprises themselves. She cites the wellness industry’s frequent adoption of new fragrances and skin care products. Similar scenarios occur in the technology sector, albeit at a slower rate.

We contend that innovation within tourism enterprises varies, as does the degree of the desire to grow and add value. But the manner in which this process manifests depends on both internal and external perspectives, as outlined in our research methods and findings.

Methods

Our research purpose was to understand human action in relation to how tourism enterprise and organization stakeholders approached innovation. We used interpretative methods over a two-year period to study the caravan and holiday park sector, initially in Australia, and subsequently in Western Europe. The parks represented an underresearched tourism sector that outperformed hotels in business growth during the recent economic slowdown (Brooker and Joppe 2013). Our investigation sought to determine why this expansion occurred in a sector operated primarily by small, family-run tourism enterprises, and perceived by the public as offering low-end tourism accommodation and catering primarily to a niche audience (Brooker 2011).

In 2010, we performed an initial two-phase interpretative inquiry using semistructured interviews with selected participants to identify innovation approaches within the park sector. In Phase 1, we contacted by e-mail four industry leaders: the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Caravan, RV & Accommodation Association of Australia and the CEOs of the New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria caravan and holiday park industry associations. Each CEO was asked to identify park operators within their jurisdictions whom they deemed to be innovative, although the term was not defined, leaving it to each to interpret its meaning. We used snowball sampling to further detect people who were rich sources of information (Patton 1990, p. 182), thus ensuring appropriate representation. We identified 42 “innovative” park operators and sector administrators, although a saturation point for new information was reached after 30 semistructured interviews. The group represented assorted industry stakeholders, as illustrated in Table 1. We asked our participants questions that were meant to elicit answers related to incremental and radical innovation (Abernathy and Clark 1985), barriers faced by operators and administrators in implementing innovative strategies, and what they saw in their industry’s future. We audiotaped each interview and took notes to ensure that details were duly recorded. NVivo 8 software was later used to assemble the resulting insights into appropriate themes.

Table 1.

Interview Categories and Representation.

Administrators	Industry associations including Caravan, RV & Accommodation Industry of Australia; Caravan & Camping Industry Association NSW; Caravanning Queensland; and marketing chains: Big4 Holiday Parks	4 interviews
Operators	Private sector operators in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland	16 interviews
Operators	Corporate sector operators in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland	5 interviews
Operators	Government; local council	3 interviews
Government	Involved with sector	2 interviews
Total	30 interviews

Phase 2 included six follow-up, semistructured interviews with Phase 1 participants who exhibited noticeably different innovation tactics from the other 24 “innovators.” These individuals represented industry thought leaders, analogous to Rogers’s (2003) early adopter. Three owned and operated parks in Queensland and New South Wales, two were industry administrators based in New South Wales and Victoria, and one managed corporate parks in New South Wales and Queensland.

Our analysis of the innovation, entrepreneurship, and tourism literature brought to our attention that there was minimal research into the characteristics of early innovation adopters (Rogers 2003) within a tourism context. Therefore, Phase 3 of our inquiry focused on a convenience sample of caravan and holiday park operators located in Netherlands, Germany, France, and Italy, each of whom was deemed to be an innovative leader by their peers. We conducted semistructured interviews in April and May 2012 with two operators from each country. Collectively, the 44 interviews, which included 14 with early innovation adopters, help to clarify distinctions among tourism sector innovators.

Findings

The sector as a whole was not found to be innovative in the Schumpeterian sense, as operators openly relied on imitating each other’s tactics (Brooker 2011). As one participant volunteered, “We can nominate individuals who may display innovation, but as an industry, we definitely undertake incremental improvements” (personal interview, July 2010). This comment succinctly summarized our findings that most operators relied on maintaining the status quo, punctuating it with minor adjustments. In contrast, a small group demonstrated an ambidextrous ability to keep in mind both their own businesses or organizations and the industry itself, thus ensuring that their efforts and innovations enhanced each. It was evident that these leaders were not satisfied with replicating existing ideas but rather envisioned new concepts to differentiate themselves from their peers by lifting, shifting, and adapting them to their own situations. As a result, these innovators spearheaded the introduction of water parks (having seen their success in the United States); architecturally designed in place of mass produced, prefabricated cabins; health and wellness products and services; on-site packaging reflecting varying target markets’ interests; social media promotion; glamping products such as treehouses, safari tents, and teepees; environmentally focused programs targeting nontraditional markets such as business meetings, conferences, school groups, and sports teams; and dormitories to accommodate nontourism markets.

The innovators introduced novel concepts and new product and service features in three- to four-year cycles. The time period provided opportunities to gauge the market’s reactions to the new ideas, allowed competitors time to copy the concepts before additional differentiation was required, and provided the operators with time to commence the search for the subsequent new idea. Several ideas were lifted and shifted from purposeful interaction with weaker networks and adapted to fit the local context. For example, an industry CEO replicated an existing British environmental awards program, modified the criteria to fit the Australian perspective, and renamed it to reflect local character. Ten years after its introduction, the awards program continues to make a strong contribution to green industry practices and effective community relations. The same CEO led several international study tours to the United States, South Africa, and Western Europe to gather inspiration for new concepts, noting that “the park visits opened our group’s eyes about the possibilities” (personal communication, September 2010).

European park operators similarly searched for new ideas, particularly within the wellness sector, and subsequently began offering several products and services such as spas, massages, and other therapies to their guests. For example, one German holiday park offers 50 different wellness therapies exclusively for its guests. One Italian holiday park offers 13 different saunas as well as various wellness packages. These properties recognize the opportunity inherent in wellness and continuously upgrade related facilities and services (Brooker and Joppe 2013). To date, only one Australian operator has adopted the wellness concept.

Discussion

If innovation is to be an effective strategy within tourism it needs to be inclusive rather than exclusive, overcoming indifference by making a difference (Haywood 2013), and offering value to its multiple stakeholders. However, innovation is not easily boxed and distributed. Conceptually, innovation involves introducing a new concept, whether it is a product, process, service, marketing technique, organizational structure, or market. Newness was previously considered as either an incremental improvement or a radically different step. Innovation is not, however, a binary concept. Rather, it is a continuum, where “new” is both relative and contextual to the sector. Incremental improvements are the norm within tourism, although a small percentage will lift, shift, and adapt “new” ideas. However, as Rogers (1995) noted, an even smaller percentage introduce unique or “next” concepts for the first time that disrupt current thinking and norms. Not surprisingly, our field research did not identify a radical innovator nor was any reference made to a potential outlier during the interview process. Accordingly, we noted three distinct innovation levels rather than two—incremental, radical, and a liminal position betwixt and between the two.

Our proposed typology suggests that three actors undertake innovation within tourism—the painter, the artisan, and the artist. Table 2 articulates their key characteristics. The painter’s style is realist, unpretentious, understandable, and business-like, much like the majority of operators, administrators, and organizations. A painter’s art is exclusive rather than inclusive, based on personal rather than broader (sectoral) perspectives. The codified knowledge informs his or her own operation, as reflected in the proximate questions (Crouch 2013) that are asked such as “What” do my current customers want? “What” are my competitors offering that I could readily imitate to improve my value proposition? Promotional activities reflect this perspective as the painter focuses on products that define the operation. In essence, painters anticipate that the past will be replicated in the future such that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow. They are most comfortable interacting within a strong network and rely on family, friends, and peers to inform decision making. Their search for additional operating insights during a liminal travel experience is restricted to visiting peers or attending an industry conference. They might implement ideas that are easy to put into practice, are affordable, and contribute to short-term profits. Liminality and an outsider’s influence have minimal impact on painters’ ability to innovate.

Table 2.

Painter, Artisan, and Artist Characteristics.

	Painter	Artisan	Artist
Horizon focus	Now	New	Next
Change artist	Imitate	Differentiate	Innovate
Sector position	Inside	Inside	Outside
Change preference	Status quo	Periodic challenge of status quo	Disrupts status quo
Rogers’s diffusion	Majority (early/late)	Early adopter	Innovator
Rogers’s percentage	68% of population	13.5% of population	2.5% of population
Primary question	What?	How?	Why?
Network ties	Strong	Not as strong	Weak
Focus	Short term	Medium term	Long term
Focus on	Tangible	Potential	Intangible
Focus on	Either/or	And	Neither
Perspective	See black/white	See grey	See between spaces
Disrupt status quo	Minimal	Periodic	Ongoing
Knowledge level	Codified	Codified/Tacit	Tacit
Research investment	Minimal	Periodic $ and time for travel, networking	Most expensive, ongoing search
Risk	Avoid risk	Minimize risk	Calculated risk
Results time frame	Annually	Three to four years	Five to eight years
Job creation	Unlikely	Potentially	Yes
Target ratio of resource investment	70%	20%	10%

Artisans are able to see beyond personal boundaries, and recognize tourism as an abstract, disjointed, and shifting concept (Haywood 2013). Their views respectfully challenge existing perceptions, making their perspective purposefully different from that of painters. Their artistic style could be considered a mixture of realism and the abstract. Artisans are more comfortable with developing new ideas than painters. They pose “how” queries to others within their weaker networks to gain insights into successful innovations occurring elsewhere, allowing them to potentially be the first to introduce fresh concepts within their own sector. Artisans modify risk by periodically finding and implementing new ideas, usually every three to four years. During the stretch, they monitor customer reactions while giving their peers adequate time to adopt the idea, thus ensuring enhanced public perceptions of the sector. The liminal experiences of artisans differ from those of painters in distance and purpose. Rather than interacting with existing peers, they travel internationally to meet with other leaders and participate in conferences to share their experiences and learn from others. The result is a different art form, still recognizable, but distinctly contemporary.

Artists are creative outsiders immune to existing “realism,” and therefore offer the most unique type of art. They reimagine (Peters 2003) new ideas and formats, unconcerned with previous offerings and traditions. Artists visualize what others are unable to because they question more deeply. Rather than relying on proximate “what” or “how” questions, they pose ultimate questions by seeking to understand why a situation occurs, why a sector has not offered a certain product or service, and why existing methods and perceptions persist. The responses provide them with fresh perspectives, which are reinforced through frequent liminal experiences. By seeking tacit knowledge through weak social ties, artists are able to produce art different from what has been offered before. Artists overcome indifference by making a difference, inspiring artisans to imitate the new creations.

The painter, artisan, and artist categories represent distinct philosophies rather than hard boundaries. Collectively, they serve to represent a unique tourism innovation typology. The sector needs all three types. Artists rely on artisans and painters to diffuse their new ideas. The market, however, requires stability and is unable to contend with constant upheaval, which is where artisans come in. They recognize more than painters and artists that tourists are often motivated to escape to locations they have previously visited, where they encounter valued traditions and friends (Foley and Hayllar 2007). Consequently, they only periodically (Brooker 2011) introduce new concepts. However, since the market is unable to articulate novel concepts (McCarthy 2013), the artists’ role is equally important in developing next level products, services, and processes.

The proposed typology facilitates and promotes inclusivity rather than exclusivity. In other words, tourism organizations regardless of size could combine the three types in an ambidextrous approach (Markides 1997). The proportion of each style may vary, whereby an organization would focus 70% of its development efforts on incremental improvements, ensuring the satisfaction of existing customers and an efficient use of resources. Twenty percent of its resources would be spent on purposefully searching for new ideas that will allow for competitive differentiation, whereas the remaining 10% would be devoted to truly visionary endeavors. Both Google (Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen 2011) and Coca-Cola (Leibowitz 2013) utilize this principle, underscoring its value.

Conclusions

Our proposed tourism innovation typology is motivated by a lack of consistency and understanding of innovation in the literature. Until now, the term has been used to signify any change undertaken by an organization, business, or individual, without regard to its extent, context, or value contribution to tourism. Terminology suggesting that innovation is either an incremental or radical change to existing conditions has simply been transferred from manufacturing to tourism. However, since radical innovation is rare in the tourism sector, a broader framework based on its characteristics is required to clearly delineate distinctive innovation approaches. We have presented a three-level typology that acknowledges the critical role played by “liminal” innovators, a hybrid of incremental and radical styles. Our “artist” innovators, “artisan” early adopters, and “painter” late adopters are categories meant to shed light on the often misunderstood topic of innovation.

The paper makes three substantial contributions to the study of tourism innovation. It offers a clear three-level innovation typology specific to tourism. The conceptual framework allows tourism researchers to refine innovation within a wider context since it is flexible and the levels can be explored separately or comparatively. Second, it identifies the key characteristics of the three innovation levels and thus serves to question the reliance on binaries to frame research that fail to recognize liminal perspectives. Third, the paper supports Crouch’s (2013) argument that we need more research based on ultimate rather than proximate questions.

The proposed tourism typology also bridges the gap between theory and practice. As such, it offers liminal value to academics and practitioners by proposing a framework that can be used effectively by both parties. Additional research utilizing the typology would contribute further insights into the distinctions between the different approaches to capitalizing on change, the value of weak social network ties, and the manner in which knowledge is exchanged between the various stakeholders.

We do nonetheless recognize certain limitations to the study. The findings were informed by field research in a niche tourism sector, and on Australian and European perspectives. However, the authors have successfully applied the typology to characterize rural tourism in Southern Ontario (Joppe and Brooker 2013) and to analyze a case study of farm spa tourism in the Netherlands (Brooker and Joppe 2012). This paper may motivate others to further investigate the proposed model to support its value.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Ed Brooker is a Professor of Marketing at Sheridan College, Canada, and researcher interested in innovation, knowledge networks, commercial outdoor recreation, and destination marketing. He obtained his doctorate from Griffith University, Australia focusing on the levels of innovation within Australian caravan parks.

Marion Joppe is a Professor in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Guelph, Canada. She obtained her doctorate from the University of Aix-Marseille, France in Law and Economics of Tourism and specializes in destination planning, development and marketing, and the experiences upon which destinations build.

References

Abernathy

Clark

(1985). “Innovation: Mapping the Winds of Creative Destruction.” Research Policy, 14 (1): 3-22.

Ateljevic

(2009). “Tourism Entrepreneurship and Regional Development: Example from New Zealand.” International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 15 (3): 282-308.

Ateljevic

Doorne

(2004). “Diseconomies of Scale: A Study of Development Constraints in Small Tourism Firms in Central New Zealand.” Tourism and Hospitality Research, 5 (1): 5-24.

Baregheh

Rowley

Sambrook

(2009). “Towards a Multidisciplinary Definition of Innovation.” Management Decision, 47 (8): 1323-39.

Baum

Calabrese

Silverman

(2000). “Don’t Go It Alone: Alliance Network Composition and Startups’ Performance in Canadian Biotechnology.” Strategic Management Journal, 21: 267-94.

Berdychevsky

Poria

Uriely

(2013). “Sexual Behavior in Women’s Tourist Experiences: Motivations, Behaviors, and Meanings.” Tourism Management, 35: 144-55.

Bessant

(2005). “Enabling Continuous and Discontinuous Innovation: Learning from the Private Sector.” Public Money & Management, 25: 35-42.

Brás

Costa

Buhalis

(2010). “Networks Analysis and Wine Routes: The Case of the Bairrada Wine Route, Portugal.” The Services Industries Journal, 30 (10): 1-21.

Brendon

(1991). Thomas Cook: 150 Years of Popular Tourism. London: Secker Warburg.

10.

Brighthouse. (2012). A Strategic Approach to Caravan & Camping Tourism in Western Australia. Mandurah, WA: Brighthouse.

11.

Brooker

(2011). “In Search of Entrepreneurial Innovation in the Australian Outdoor Hospitality Parks Sector.” Unpublished PhD thesis, School of Business, Griffith University, Australia.

12.

Brooker

Joppe

Davidson

Marles

(2012). “Innovation within the Australian Outdoor Hospitality Parks Industry.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 24 (5): 682-700.

13.

Brooker

Joppe

(2012). “Entrepreneurial Approaches to Rural Tourism in the Netherlands: Distinct Differences.” “Big Ideas in Rural Settings” Conference, Wilfrid Laurier University, September 28-29.

14.

Brooker

Joppe

(2013). “Trends in Camping and Outdoor Hospitality—An International Review.” Journal of Outdoor Recreation & Tourism, 3-4: 1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.jort.2013.04.005.

15.

Carayannis

Gonzalez

Wetter

(2003). “The Nature and Dynamics of Discontinuous and Disruptive Innovations from a Learning and Knowledge Management Perspective.” In The International Handbook on Innovation, edited by Shavinina

Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 115-38.

16.

Chambers

(2001). Native Tours: The Anthropology of Travel and Tourism. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.

17.

Chan

Pine

(1998). “Service Innovation in Hong Kong: Attitudes and Practice.” The Service Industries Journal, 18 (2): 112-24.

18.

Christensen

(1997). The Innovator’s Dilemma. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

19.

Christensen

Bower

(1996). “Customer Power, Strategic Investment, and the Failure of Leading Firms.” Strategic Management Journal, 17 (3): 197-218.

20.

Cohen

(2003). “Backpacking: Diversity and Change.” Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 1 (2): 95-110.

21.

Cooper

(2006). “Knowledge Management and Tourism.” Annals of Tourism Research, 33 (1): 47-64.

22.

Crouch

(2013). “Homo Sapiens on Vacation: What Can We Learn from Darwin?”

Journal of Travel Research, published online February 17, 2013.

23.

Day

(1994). “The Capabilities of Market-driven Firms.” Journal of Marketing, 58 (4): 37-52.

24.

Decelle

(2004). “A Conceptual and Dynamic Approach to Innovation in Tourism.” http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/55/28/34267921.pdf (accessed February 10, 2009).

25.

Dewar

Dutton

(1986). “The Adoption of Radical and Incremental Innovations: An Empirical Analysis.” Management Science, 32 (11): 1422-33.

26.

Drucker

(1985). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. New York: HarperCollins.

27.

Dyer

Gregersen

Christensen

C. M.

(2011). The Innovator’s DNA. Boston: Harvard Business Press Review.

28.

Feeny

Rogers

(2003). “Innovation and Performance: Benchmarking Australian Firms.” The Australian Economic Review, 36 (3): 253-64.

29.

Foley

Hayllar

(2007). “A Tale of Two Caravan Parks: Friendship, Community and the Freedom Thing.” Tourism Today, Fall: 7-28.

30.

Foster

Kaplan

(2001). Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market—And How to Successfully Transform Them. New York: Doubleday.

31.

Graburn

(1977). “Tourism: The Sacred Journey.” In Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, edited by Smith

V. L.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 17-31.

32.

Graburn

(2001). “Secular Ritual: A General Theory of Tourism.” In Hosts and Guests Revisited: Tourism Issues of the 21st Century, edited by Smith

Brent

New York: Cognizant Communication, pp. 42-52.

33.

Granovetter

(1973). “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology, 78 (6): 1360-80.

34.

Grosz

(1989). Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

35.

Hall

(2005). “Rural Wine and Food Tourism Cluster Network Development.” In Rural Tourism and Sustainable Business, edited by Hall

Kirkpatrick

Mitchell

Clevedon, UK: Channel View, pp. 149-64.

36.

Hall

Williams

(2008). Tourism and Innovation. New York: Routledge.

37.

Hardy

Hanson

Gretzel

(2012). “Online Representations of RVing Neo-tribes in the USA and Australia.” Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 10 (3): 219-32.

38.

Haywood

Michael

. (March 18, 2013). “Are We Placing Too Much Emphasis on Marketing Destinations Rather Than Putting More Funding and Effort into Developing the Products and Experiences Which Make up the Destination? [Destination Strategies – Linked in]. http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=221297449&gid=152645&commentID=125340608&goback=%2Egmr_152645%2Eamf_152645_7548879&trk=NUS_DISC_Q-subject#commentID_125340608

39.

Heath

(2008). Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. New York: Random House.

40.

Hjalager

A. M.

(2010). “A Review of Innovation Research in Tourism.” Tourism Management, 31: 1-12.

41.

Hoelzl

Pechlaner

Laesser

(2005). “Imitation Processes in SMEs—A Special Form of Innovation?” 55th AIEST Congress 2005, St Gallen, Switzerland, International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism.

42.

Johansson

(2004). The Medici Effect. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

43.

Jones

(1996). “Managing Hospitality Innovation.” Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 37 (5): 86-95.

44.

Joppe

Brooker

(2013). “Rural Tourism: An Internal Perspective on Challenges and Innovation.” In Innovation and Competitiveness in Hospitality and Tourism, edited by Crotts

Gupta

S. K.

Bagri

S. C.

New Delhi, India: Kaniska, pp. 34-51.

45.

Kenrick

Maner

(2005). “Evolutionary Social Psychology.” In The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, edited by Buss

D. M.

Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, pp. 803-27.

46.

Kwoh

(2012, May 23). “You Call That Innovation?” The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304791704577418250902309914.html.

47.

Leibowitz

Josh

. (February 13, 2013). “Invest to Innovate: Coke’s 70/20/10 Rule” [Linked in]. http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130213130531-12921524-invest-to-innovate-coke-s-70-20-10-rule.

48.

Lett

(1983). “Lucid and Liminoid Aspects of Charter Yacht Tourism in the Caribbean.” Annals of Tourism Research, 10 (1): 35-56.

49.

Love

(1986). McDonald’s: Behind the Arches. New York: Bantam Books.

50.

Markides

(1997). “Strategic Innovation.” Sloan Management Review, 38 (30): 9-23.

51.

McCarthy

Ian

. (April 1, 2013). “Three Myths of Innovation.” [ItDependsBlog].itdepends4.blogspot.ca/2013/03/three-myths-of-innovation.html?goback=%2Egde_40975_member_227863601.

52.

Morrison

Carlsen

Weber

(2010). “Small Tourism Business Research Change and Evolution.” International Journal of Tourism Research, 12 (6): 739-49.

53.

Morrison

Teixeira

(2004). “Small Business Performance: A UK Tourism Sector Focus.” Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 11 (2): 166-73.

54.

Noy

(2004). “This Trip Really Changed Me: Backpackers’ Narratives of Self Change.” Annals of Tourism Research, 31 (1): 78-102.

55.

OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation). (2010). SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Paris: OECD.

56.

Ottenbacher

Harrington

(2007). “The Innovation Development Process of Michelin-starred Chefs.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 19 (6): 444-60.

57.

Patton

(1990). Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. London: Sage.

58.

Peters

(2003). Re-imagine. London: Dorling Kindersley.

59.

Pikkemaat

(2008). “Innovation in Small and Medium-Sized Tourism Enterprises in Tyrol, Austria.” Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 9 (3): 187-97.

60.

Poon

(1998). “All-Inclusive Resorts.” In Economic Intelligence Unit. Travel & Tourism Analyst, 6, November.

61.

Porter

(1985). Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. New York: Free Press.

62.

Powell

Grodal

(2005). “Networks of Innovators.” In The Oxford Handbook of Innovation, edited by Fagerberg

Mowery

Nelson

Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 56-85.

63.

Preston-Whyte

(2004). “The Beach as a Liminal Space.” In A Companion to Tourism, edited by Lew

Hall

Williams

Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 349-59.

64.

Pritchard

Morgan

(2006). “Hotel Babylon? Exploring Hotels as Liminal Sites of Transgression and Transition.” Tourism Management, 27 (5): 762-72.

65.

Pritchard

Morgan

(2010). “Wild on’ the Beach: Discourses of Desire, Sexuality and Liminality.” In Culture, Heritage and Representation, edited by Waterton

Watson

Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 127-44.

66.

Rindova

Fombrun

(2001). “Entrepreneurial Action in the Creation of the Specialty Coffee Niche.” In The Entrepreneurship Dynamic: Origins of Entrepreneurship and the Evolution of Industries, edited by Schoonhoven

Romanelli

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 236-61.

67.

Rogers

(1995). Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press.

68.

Rogers

(2003). The Diffusion of Innovations, 5th edition. New York: Free Press.

69.

Ryan

Kinder

(1996). “Sex, Tourism, and Sex Tourism: Fulfilling Similar Needs?” Tourism Management, 17 (7): 507-18.

70.

Ryan

Martin

(2001). “Tourists and Strippers: Liminal Theater.” Annals of Tourism Research, 28 (1): 140-63.

71.

Saad

(2007). The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

72.

Schumpeter

(1934). The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

73.

Shields

(1991). Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. New York: Routledge.

74.

Sørensen

(2007). “The Geographies of Social Networks and Innovation in Tourism.” Tourism Geographies, 9 (1): 22-48.

75.

Sundbo

Orfila-Sintes

Sørensen

(2007). “The Innovative Behaviour of Tourism Firms—Comparative Studies of Denmark and Spain.” Research Policy, 36: 88-106.

76.

Taleb

(2012). Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. New York: Random House.

77.

Tether

(2005). “Do Services Innovate (Differently)? Insights from the European Innobarometer Survey.” Industry and Innovation, 12 (2): 153-84.

78.

Tidd

Bessant

(2009). Managing Innovation, 4th edition. West Sussex: Wiley.

79.

Turner

(1974). Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

80.

Tushman

Anderson

(1986). “Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 31 (3): 439-65.

81.

Urry

(1990). The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage.

82.

Utterback

(1994). Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

83.

van Gennep

. (1909). Les rites de passage [The Rites of Passage]. Paris: Emile Nourry.

84.

Weichselbaumer

(2012). “Sex, Romance and the Carnivalesque between Female Tourists and Caribbean Men.” Tourism Management, 33: 1220-29.

85.

Weth

(2007). Innovations and Creativity—How Disney Keeps Ideas Coming. Munich: GRIN Verlag.

86.

Whittington

Owen-Smith

Powell

(2009). “Networks, Propinquity, and Innovation in Knowledge-Intensive Industries.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 54: 90-122.

87.

Wickens

(2002). “The Sacred and the Profane.” Annals of Tourism Research, 29 (3): 834-51.

88.

Williams

Stewart

Larsen

(2012). “Toward an Agenda of High-Priority Tourism Research.” Journal of Travel Research, 51 (1): 3-11.

89.

Yarnal

C. M.

Kerstetter

(2005). “Casting Off: An Exploration of Cruise Ship Space, Group Tour Behavior, and Social Interaction.” Journal of Travel Research, 43: 368-79.

90.

Yiannakis

Gibson

(1992). “Roles Tourists Play.” Annals of Tourism Research, 19 (1): 287-303.

91.

Zach

(2012). “Partners and Innovation in American Destination Marketing Organizations.” Journal of Travel Research, 52 (4): 412-25.