The behaviour of tourism firms in the area of innovativeness

Abstract

Innovativeness in companies in the tourism sector can reasonably be considered to be one of the most important factors of performance. This paper highlights the importance of two determinants of tourism firms’ innovativeness – namely, market and entrepreneurial orientation – focusing on the tourism sector. A conceptual model was developed and empirically tested based on 91 Slovenian tourism SMEs. The results of the study reveal the positive impact of a market and entrepreneurial orientation on innovativeness, the positive relationship of innovativeness with firm performance, and the importance of antecedents of innovativeness and their impacts on performance. Thus, tourism firms should be encouraged to introduce more entrepreneurial and marketing activities to increase innovativeness, which fosters better firm performance. On this basis, a greater competitive advantage can be reached.