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The necessity of tourism business change
The tourism business environment is very dynamic. The events of recent years have revealed the vulnerability of the service sector, as well as tourism, to unforeseen forces of impact. The pause in the development of international tourism was a great opportunity to revise and reload the business concept, to think about innovations that will help revive the tourism business or strengthen its competitive advantage. For long-established businesses in the tourism market, innovation can be a way to offer new and higher quality products or services and thus compete with new tourist attractions. Although the main source of tourism innovation is recognized as information technology, mobile technology, which simplifies the reservation of services and increases customer satisfaction, the sharing economy is also recognized as a source of ideas for tourism innovation, which encouraged the more efficient use of personal resources, for example, offering travelers unused rooms or free seats in a car.
The essence of tourism innovation
When implementing innovations in the tourism sector, customer orientation plays a key role. The success of tourism companies depends on constant adaptation to changes in demand. With the changing behaviour pattern of tourists, the interests of travellers are mainly focused on the experience that a tourism service provider can offer. Tourism service companies have established the quality of their services and a greater individual user experience as continuous innovation. This is achieved by anticipating customer needs and wants, increasing loyalty through various programs, expanding the customer base, while reducing idle capacity and increasing efficiency and productivity. Service innovation helps find ways to create and deliver greater value to customers through the use of technology or process optimization. This means continuous improvement and streamlining of ideas, giving employees and customers more operational authority. The result of tourism innovation is described as a typologically new customer experience.
Impact of innovation on tourism business and environment
Virtual communication possibilities increase the possibilities of direct communication with customers and minimize the related costs, so the task for the hospitality and tourism business is to find the optimal relationship between digital technologies and human activity, which would enable creating a personal experience for customers, respecting their privacy.
Technological innovations create an opportunity for small businesses to join clusters or cooperative ecosystems, where more and more activities and services are coordinated with the help of smart technologies. Orientation to the needs of modern “smart” tourists and practical solutions not only at the level of business, but also at the tourism destination level has a positive influence on the quality of life of local residents, which is also a necessary component of sustainable tourism development.
Increasing the resilience of the tourism business
Resilient organizations are characterized by the internal ability to maintain and recover a dynamically stable state, which allows them to successfully continue their activities after various shocks or to operate effectively in an environment of constant threats. Opportunities to increase business resilience should first of all be sought within the company. Resilient organizations are ready for change. Changes require leaving the comfort zone, which is why employees do not always agree to them. In this case, it is very important for an entrepreneur to inspire employees to change, ensuring their well-being, safety and a good organizational microclimate. In those companies where mutual support is felt, listening to the employee’s opinion, business resilience is much higher. Also important is the prompt exchange of information, ideas, ideas in business, simply talking to each other, which can lead to unexpected discoveries that strengthen the viability of the business.
Monitor the business environment, identify threats before they become critical. Analyse how much you can control the situation under changed conditions, how much you can reduce business costs. Reengineer your business model to meet the changing business environment and activate all efforts that strengthen your business value proposition to the consumer.