Innovation as a Driver of Hotel Business Development

There is much talk of innovation in the tourism sector; in fact, a Google search for the term returns millions of results. Innovation is also widely discussed in the hotel industry, although the term is not as popular on Google—but all in good time. Tourist destinations, like the hotel sector, have understood the need to innovate in order to improve their competitiveness. As a result, we see conferences, seminars and congresses being organised every day in which innovation plays a fundamental role. As a result, a large number of tourist destinations are immersed in “2.0-isation” processes as a method of innovation and, consequently, in a clear attempt to compete. The same is happening with hotels, which have rushed en masse to promote themselves on Social Media To date, we cannot argue for the success or failure of such actions. However, it is strange that there are still no data on the results achieved by tourist destinations through these actions, given how keen tourism promotion bodies are to showcase their figures. It is clear that the tourist season is still to come, but there are not even any forecasts in this regard. I believe that:

• Innovation is not exactly that. In other words, Social Media may be very rewarding, but it is not innovative. It is a current reality that revolves around human nature and, therefore, there is very little that is innovative about it.
• Its intangible nature and limited capacity to generate results in the short and medium term mean it is not the best channel for promotion in the current economic climate.

Innovation goes much further. First, let us look at Wikipedia’s definition of the term Innovation:

Innovation is the application of new ideas, concepts, products, services and practices, with the aim of being useful in increasing productivity. An essential element of innovation is its successful commercial application. It is not enough simply to invent something; it must also, for example, be introduced to the market so that people can benefit from it.

More specifically, innovating involves:

• Increased productivity.
• Successful commercial application.
• Inventing something and introducing it so that people can enjoy it.

Unfortunately, these are things nobody has conveyed to us to date. Therefore, the responsibility for moving our sector forward will fall to traditional tools and methods. The issue is that even these—Distribution, Marketing, Promotion and Revenue Management—are not being properly implemented in a large number of establishments. I believe that the key to innovation lies in Training and Team Development. Therefore, innovation in our sector is about more than Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The needs of the hotel sector require solutions for today, not tomorrow. Solutions that deliver measurable results in the short term.