1. Innovation in Tourism Organisations: Facilitators and Barriers BEST Education Network Think Tank VII Margaret Deery and Leo Jago Centre for Hospitality and Tourism Research Victoria University

2. Background –Importance of innovation to industry –Difficulties in innovation adoption in the Australian tourism industry SMTEs Dissemination of knowledge products Many time poor, risk averse businesses

3. Innovation Process Cooper, Jago, Carlsen and Ruhanen, 2006) First Knowledge of Innovation Form Attitude to Innovation Decision to Adopt or Reject Innovation Implement- ation of the Innovation Confirmation of Decision to Implement Innovation

4. Barriers to the Adoption of Innovation Barriers to the adoption of innovation by SMTEs (Hwang and Lockwood, 2006): Particularly effected by the changes in tourist demand Seasonality Limited resources – human and financial Lack of skilled labour Lack of internal and external market intelligence Location of the SMTE

5. Case Studies: STCRC Innovative Tourism Products Industry Performance Analyser for Tourism (IPAT) industry identified a need to be able to: – monitor performance over time – compare performance to similar businesses IPAT developed for use in a range of different sectors. It is: – a computer program that resides on a remote server – enables users to input a small number of key performance variables –Allows an immediate comparison of business performance over time – if sufficient number of other similar businesses – can compare with these

6. Case Study: IPAT Evaluation of the use of IPAT (Scott and Breakey, 2007) operators state it is useful but… It needs operator ‘buy-in’ and continuing support Lessons for the facilitation of innovative products: – there needs to be a government or industry champion – operators require considerable nurturing, mentoring to adopt new products

7. Case Study: Encore Festival and Event Evaluation Kit Background to the kit development Applications and adaptations of the kit Limited uptake of the kit due to: –Changes in staff and lack of familiarity with the kit –Lack of ownership of the kit –Lack of ‘research’ skills

8. Conclusions Adoption as important as innovation Enhance techniques for adoption of innovation –Focus on high performers –Champions to demonstrate