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PROMOTING INNOVATION IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY
Marius BRAZDAUSKAS, Greta GRUODĖ
Vilniaus Kolegija / University of Applied Sciences,
Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Abstract
Today innovation is an essential factor for business competitive advantage and progress, especially in such
customer-oriented business areas like hotel industry. More than ever before, both leisure and business
travellers are looking for unique innovative experiences; therefore, hotel industry is highly motivated to
advance and promote new innovations to gain stronger market positions and create outstanding brands. This
paper is an exploratory study aiming to illustrate the integration of various approaches to promote innovation
in hotel industry, and increase better understanding of innovation dynamics in recent hotel industry
developments. The objective of this paper is to analyze innovation in hotel industry in terms of four innovation
types of product, process, marketing and organizational innovations (OECD, 2015), and, in turn, to exemplify
this innovation variety based on a case study of Marriott hotel in accordance to their recent innovation
developments.
Keywords: hotel industry, hotel innovations, product innovation, process innovation, organizational
innovation, marketing innovation.
Introduction
Today innovation is an essential factor for business competitive advantage and progress,
especially in such customer-oriented business areas like hotel industry. Currently tourism is
one of the most promising industries in the world; therefore, there is urgent need to better
understand and develop innovations. Research suggests that tourists are more than ever
before looking for new and unique experiences (Hua et al., 2009). As hotel industry is highly
competitive, hotels invest more proactively in innovations in order to maintain or improve
their market positions and brand images. In the context of hotel management, Chen (2011)
indicated that innovation provides means for an organization to convert change into
opportunities and thus succeed. More than ever before, both leisure and business travellers
are looking for unique innovative experiences; therefore, hotel industry is highly motivated
to advance and promote new innovations to gain stronger market positions and create
outstanding brands.
Firstly, what is innovation? Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly
improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new
organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations.
There are different innovation classification models for discussing innovation types. One of
the most prominent and established models of innovation classification is provided in the
Oslo Manual (OECD, 2005), where innovation is classified into four types. Firstly, for product
innovation refers to the introduction of a new product, including essential improvements,
technical specification, components, materials, and other functional characteristics.
Secondly, process innovation refers to the implementation of a new production method or
delivery method (mainly focus on processes). Thirdly, marketing innovation refers to a new
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