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Expression of tourism innovativeness and evaluation of its economic impact
| Date Issued | Start Page | End Page |
|---|---|---|
2023-05-25 | 75 | 88 |
The changes in the tourism market in the current period are mainly driven by the Millennials with the highest economic purchasing power (Dimock, 2019), who currently make up the largest population generation on the planet (Purani, Kumar and Sahadev, 2019). These consumers grew up surrounded by innovation, modern technologies, the Internet and social networks, their habits and decision-making processes are different from those of previous generations. The impact of the demand created by this generation on the service sector, tourism and the economy is different. Due to the change in the needs of consumers, the demand for the consumption of innovations increases, which encourages the tourism sector to implement innovations. Innovativeness in the tourism sector is increasing due to rapid technological progress and access to technology. Technologies in the tourism sector allow the use of user-owned technological devices for the aggregation of data from different sources of information and its analysis. Users can see comparisons of different data, contact tourism service providers and other customers more easily, receive unique offers, make unique itineraries or service orders. Meanwhile, tourism businesses can more easily manage relationships with customers, provide personalized offers, optimize supply and demand, and make the right business decisions. This means that the innovativeness of tourism enables the consumer to choose new types of tourism services, and the service providers can manage them more easily. The innovativeness of the tourism sector has an economic impact on the following areas of economic impact: investment, job creation, national product, the country’s balance of payments and as an equalizing function. Three main directions for the evaluation of the economic impact of tourism innovation have been identified: evaluating the economic impact caused by the inputs of innovation, evaluating the microeconomic or macroeconomic impact. When evaluating inputs of innovativeness, important indicators are: investments in R&D, number of patents. Microeconomic evaluation indicators: increase in added value, better quality services and products, taking a larger market share, profitability. Macroeconomic indicators: GDP, employment, exports. Analysing research conducted by scientists from various countries, it was found that the greatest economic impact is caused by innovativeness in tourism before the trip (Gursoy, 2019; Nie, et al., 2020), i.e., innovativeness determining the decision to travel. After compiling and verifying the economic impact model of tourism innovation, performing correlational and regression analyses, structural equation modelling, the positive economic impact of tourism innovation in European countries was determined. The innovativeness of tourism has a positive effect on capital investments in the tourism sector, total employment, gross domestic product, production value of the tourism sector, total added value, final consumption expenditure, purchase of tourism sector goods and services, export. Based on the modelling of structural equations, it was determined that the innovativeness of tourism leads to an increase in capital investment in the tourism sector, the gross domestic product, the value of production of the tourism sector, and the increase in exports.