Innovation Without Disruption: Creating New Markets in Hospitality Without Replacing What Works

For years, at almost every strategic meeting, I heard the same three ideas repeated time and again—ideas that have become near axioms in the business world: that we must analyse “what is” in depth to project “what could be”; that the key to growth lies in technological innovation; and that major transformations are born from lone visionaries. I will not say these ideas are untrue. But today, after observing, failing, rethinking and trying again, I am certain that they are not the best starting point if our aim is to create new markets where nothing existed before. Especially if we want to do so without destroying what already exists.

[caption id="attachment_244955" align="alignright" width="606"] “Don’t put the cart before the horse”: genuine innovation in hospitality is driven by vision, not by technology or legacy systems.[/caption]

Hospitality has an obsession—justifiably, of course—with disruption. Yet not every innovation needs to involve destroying markets, laying off teams or turning our operations upside down. There are paths that allow us to create without replacing, to build without displacing—and, most interestingly, to generate value for the business and for society. We call this non-disruptive creation.