Destination innovation is about more than technology

Tech­no­logy alone is unlikely to solve all our prob­lems, or help us achieve all that we wish. This is true for tour­ism des­tin­a­tions as they look to innov­ate out of crisis and into an uncer­tain future.

It’s a “GT” Insight by K Michael Hay­wood. [You too can write a “Good Tour­ism” Insight.]

The World Tour­ism Innov­a­tion and Devel­op­ment Report, 2021 – 2022 provides an inter­est­ing frame­work for glob­al tour­ism innov­a­tion. It asserts that tech­no­logy “holds the key to the cre­ation and evol­u­tion of mod­ern tourism”. 

Does it do justice to innov­a­tion in destinations? 

I’m not convinced. 

While equat­ing innov­a­tion to tech­no­lo­gies — e.g. the applic­a­tion of smart tour­ism to des­tin­a­tions and the meta­verse to cul­tur­al ima­gin­a­tions — is per­vas­ive, it’s misleading.

Moreover, tech­no­lo­gies aren’t benign. The advant­ages provided are undeni­able, but they can alter the land­scapes of com­munit­ies, gen­er­ate cul­tur­al upheavals, and foster sig­ni­fic­ant socio-eco­nom­ic dislocations. 

With innov­a­tion momentum gath­er­ing steam and the num­ber of tour­ism innov­a­tion labs and chal­lenge pro­grams increas­ing — e.g. in Singa­pore and through the Inter-Amer­ic­an Devel­op­ment Bank — we need to ask: 

• Are the man­dates of such ini­ti­at­ives in keep­ing with what is essen­tial to com­munit­ies and the world? 
• Are pos­it­ive eco­nom­ic and social out­comes for all stake­hold­ers being fostered? 
• Are private-pub­lic part­ner­ships being encouraged? 
• Is every­one act­ing in accord with what glob­al cit­izens deem important? 
• Is the free­dom to move pro­tec­ted, and arbit­rary bor­ders removed? 

As the UNWTO hopes, innov­a­tion-boost­ing ini­ti­at­ives should pri­or­it­ise inclus­ive out­comes, but what do their actions reveal? Are the skills to rec­ti­fy mul­tiple adversit­ies, devel­op pro­cesses, and bring about struc­tured change being learned and applied? 

The OECD/Bloomberg Sur­vey on Innov­a­tion Capa­city provides fur­ther insight. It reminds us that innov­a­tion is as much about “cul­ture, lead­er­ship, fin­ance, gov­ernance and people as it is about tech­no­logy and data”.

As might be expec­ted, though, the private sec­tor remains fix­ated on product and exper­i­ence innov­a­tions for evolving mar­kets. How­ever, with an intensi­fy­ing desire for social innov­a­tion, expand­ing with pur­pose, becom­ing a B‑Corp, and seek­ing LEED cer­ti­fic­a­tion, the pur­suit of busi­ness mod­el innov­a­tion can­not be ignored. 

After all, as tour­ism evolves — eco­nom­ic­ally, socially, and cul­tur­ally — all-out efforts must be made to ensure com­munit­ies become and remain com­pel­ling, wel­com­ing, and com­pre­hens­ively sus­tain­able, so that com­munity shared value becomes the norm. Con­sider Marriott’s attempt to Nur­ture our World.

In the pub­lic sec­tor, one expects innov­a­tion to be in the pub­lic interest. 

• But is pur­pose­ful innov­a­tion get­ting done?
• Is it cre­at­ing real value by address­ing the basic needs of citizens? 
• Is it improv­ing qual­ity-of-life; pub­lic leis­ure, healthy and joy­ful life­styles, and inclus­ive and sus­tain­able livelihoods? 
• And is it advan­cing ESG ini­ti­at­ives, entre­pren­eur­i­al start-ups, com­plex emer­gency gov­ernance, and cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ies? 

Innovative capacity

“Innov­ate” can­not be com­manded. It needs to be nur­tured. That’s dif­fi­cult when people are con­di­tioned by the famil­i­ar and fear­ful of the new; when com­munit­ies and private and pub­lic organ­isa­tions exper­i­ence dis­tress, or have no oth­er option but to ven­ture into uncer­tainty in dis­or­i­ent­ing times.

While some believe reviv­al and vital­ity can be achieved through place brand­ing, oth­ers lean towards new strategies, busi­ness mod­els, and policies to lever­age oppor­tun­it­ies eman­at­ing from industry trans­ition. Neither approach, how­ever, is likely to yield pos­it­ive res­ults unless it can be demon­strated that tour­ism is val­ues-led, and inspired by inclus­ive pub­lic engage­ment pro­cesses. 

As the old adage goes “cul­ture eats strategy for break­fast”. With organ­isa­tion­al suc­cess con­tin­gent on max­im­ising the fit between cul­ture and strategy, why not the suc­cess of communities-as-destinations? 

Don’t miss “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
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Giv­en the urgency to resolve press­ing prob­lems and lever­age a destination’s strengths and dis­tinct­ive resources, the case for innov­a­tion has to be made through research; form­al and mul­ti­fa­ceted assess­ments that detail what is required eco­nom­ic­ally, socially, and cul­tur­ally, now and into the future. 

Unfor­tu­nately, the enemies of neces­sity are many. Regres­sion can occur if obstacles and bar­ri­ers dis­rupt prob­lem solv­ing; ima­gin­a­tion is lack­ing; design isn’t taken ser­i­ously; stake­hold­er con­cep­tions of value aren’t con­sidered; or budgets hinder ideation and implementation.

To ensure cap­ab­il­ity isn’t wasted or innovation’s cred­ib­il­ity chal­lenged, industry lead­ers have to build stronger rela­tion­ships and dare each oth­er to be cre­at­ive. With a focus on cul­ture, for example, ways must be found to enshrine it in the offer­ings of destinations. 

Indeed, value dis­sip­ates when vis­it­ors exper­i­ence bore­dom or feel­ings of place­less­ness. When com­munit­ies feel gen­er­ic and there is a lack of human scale, the need for invest­ment in innov­at­ive place­mak­ing and mean­ing­ful spaces couldn’t be more import­ant. (It would help if com­munit­ies oper­a­tion­al­ised the Montreal Design Declar­a­tion.)

Well-con­ceived innov­a­tion can enhance des­tin­a­tions’ unique­ness and strengthen tourism’s “value to soci­ety”. Tourism’s con­nec­ted­ness to oth­er indus­tries, nature, arts, and cul­tures should be made clear as it integ­rates into the gen­er­al fab­ric of a place.

Fur­ther­more, with more people “run­ning on empty”, organ­isa­tions need innov­at­ive ways to engage employ­ees and improve their well-being. This will require a trans­form­a­tion in organ­isa­tion­al cul­ture and employ­ment prac­tice so as to foster a deep­er sense of belong­ing with­in caring organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies.

Don’t miss “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
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Intern­al and extern­al mar­ket­ing innov­a­tions also demand a nuanced approach to under­stand­ing and con­nect­ing with cit­izens and cus­tom­ers. Such efforts require gran­u­lar approaches so as to ensure peoples’ prob­lems in search of solu­tions are iden­ti­fied, and the value craved delivered. 

Mar­ket­ing’s innov­a­tions are numer­ous. To flour­ish, peoples’ senses have to be enlivened and their curi­os­ity fostered. By facil­it­at­ing com­munity advance­ment mar­keters can fur­ther ensure delight and acceptance. 

Finally, innov­a­tion agen­das can­not afford to ignore main­ten­ance and repair. Neg­lect can add addi­tion­al bur­dens, par­tic­u­larly when oth­er imper­at­ives, such as private-sec­tor sus­tain­ab­il­ity and pub­lic-sec­tor decar­bon­isa­tion, are slow in coming. 

Innov­a­tion needn’t be in crisis. Indeed, des­tin­a­tions can seize the oppor­tun­it­ies for innov­a­tion-led growth, so long as they mas­ter its eight essen­tials: Aspire, choose, dis­cov­er, evolve, accel­er­ate, scale, extend, and mobilise. 

Innovation’s outcomes

Well-con­ceived and executed innov­a­tion can influ­ence good out­comes. 

By tak­ing the lead, industry lead­ers will have to work with a shared sense of pur­pose to accel­er­ate sys­tem­ic change and devel­op tar­geted strategies. Work­ing as innov­a­tion allies in pur­suit of com­munity­ship, we can only hope to cre­ate jobs for people, not robots and streets for people, not cars.

Giv­en that strategies and policies must respond to unanti­cip­ated changes in mar­ket and com­pet­it­ive con­di­tions, hav­ing a liv­ing dynam­ic plan is crit­ic­al if des­tin­a­tion innov­a­tion is to remain rel­ev­ant, and com­munity-based tour­ism is to become the “future by design”, with help from ven­ture cap­it­al.

Fun­da­ment­al stra­tegic and oper­a­tion­al shifts have to be made in order to integ­rate sustainability’s four pil­lars, espe­cially cul­ture and moth­er nature, into innovation’s pur­pose. To ensure this, it is essen­tial that organ­isa­tions drive a Terra Carta cul­ture of respons­ib­il­ity, strive to make the link between ESG tar­gets and (fin­an­cial) per­form­ance, and use the appro­pri­ate met­rics by reima­gin­ing the Bal­anced Score­card.

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” Insights by K Michael Haywood

Now, while our com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions carry mean­ings and poten­tial far bey­ond hedon­ist­ic con­sump­tion, let’s not for­get: They are our homet­owns and sites of our col­lect­ive soci­ab­il­ity, our memor­ies, ima­gin­a­tions, and “wun­der­lands” that need to be brought to the fore. 

Pro­gress is ensured when innov­a­tions cre­ate mean­ing­ful value that is demon­strably func­tion­al, emo­tion­al, life-chan­ging, and has social impact. By adapt­ing and improv­ing as each evolves, value becomes the gift that keeps on giving.

So, with a little help from our friends and Shakespeari­an ima­gin­a­tion, let’s re-ima­gine innov­a­tion for des­tin­a­tions as pro­voca­tions towards a truly mag­ni­fi­cent renaissance.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote, com­ment, or ques­tion below. Or write a “GT” Insight of your own. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive on travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Des­tin­a­tions need innov­a­tion more than tech. Image by Michal Jar­moluk (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

K Michael Hay­wood is Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us, School of Hos­pit­al­ity, Food and Tour­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Prof Hay­wood has recently writ­ten an e‑book “Aston­ish, Smarter Tour­ism by Design”. Find Michael on Linked­In.