Patterns of innovation in tourism ‘Small and Medium-size Enterprises’

Abstract

This study aims to explore the different types of tourism innovation and to display distinctive innovation patterns by tourism small business. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to identify those non-technological factors of innovation that are specifically applicable to tourism small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Following a quantitative research approach, the empirical analysis carries out a logistic regression in order to determine the best predictors for different types of innovation. Data set consists on a survey conducted among 125 Andalusian hotel SMEs. Although the results indicate that the diverse categories of innovation – product, process, marketing and organizational – are explained by different sets of variables, it is possible to outline the results related to a number of firm's characteristics, such as dependency on tour-operator, geographic localization or co-operation.