Innovativeness in tourist companies: Assessment attempt

Abstract

The research described in the paper is aimed at presentation of the concept of the innovation process and formulation of a model of innovative potential in tourist companies, along with defining determinants of this potential. With this concept, innovativeness was assessed in the examined tourist companies from the SMB sector. The content included in the introduction allowed preliminary identification of the issues of how competitiveness and globalization stimulate innovativeness in tourism, what are the basic sources of innovativeness in tourist companies, how significant is the human factor, entrepreneurship and knowledge in the innovation process. The following part of the paper presents the discussion on the basic terms related to the innovation process and the innovative capacity of an organization, along with classifications of innovation used in tourism. The determinants of innovative potential are described, such as employee competencies, modernity of infrastructure, the level of cooperation in managing knowledge, method of work organization and protection of knowledge (innovation) originated inside the organization. The empirical part of the paper includes the results of the research on assessment of degree of innovativeness in tourist industry companies in the Małopolska region. It has been found out that it is mostly knowledge and skills of employees of tourist companies as well as cooperation between the entities in the given industry that determine the degrees of company innovativeness. The basic source of innovations in tourist companies thus comes from knowledge of employees and knowledge acquired from the outside, from other organizations.