Tourism intermediaries and innovation in the hotel industry

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of tourism intermediaries on innovation in SMEs in the hotel industry from the perspective of the global value chain approach. The paper contributes towards characterizing the changing patterns of governance in the tourism global value chains. In addition, it provides useful information about SMEs’ innovation for tourism destination managers. The dataset for this study comes from a survey of hotel SMEs in Spain. The results indicate that dependence on tour operators leads to lower levels of marketing innovation, while dependence on on-line travel agencies stimulates it. Dependence on traditional travel agencies is observed to be associated with less product innovation. Overall, dependence on tourism intermediaries implies lower autonomy in a hotel's determination of rates and margins, but can favour innovation by means of stimulating the introduction of information and communication technologies and quality standards.