The Innovation of Destination and Tourism's Challenge

Dear Colleagues,

Challenges in the tourism sector in general, and for tourist destinations in particular, include the continuous adaptation to new, rapidly evolving, and complex technologies. In modern society, innovation is an essential factor for the economic competitiveness of companies, which contributes to the development of destinations and the tourism sector. Innovation in services is, by definition, multidimensional and concerns organisational capacity (new service concepts, new customer interface, and new delivery systems) in relation to technological options. The processes involved include a non-technological component (dependent on the intangible component of human resources adding value to customer service) and a technological component, which is inseparable from the first and depends on technology. In this context, the concepts of "Smart Tourism" (characterised by a transition from traditional tourism to a smart tourism experience) and "Smart Tourism Destinations" (characterised by tourism activities performed in innovative spaces accessible to all with state-of-the-art technological infrastructure) have appeared and have had an impact on sustainable development, facilitating visitors’ interaction and integration with the environment, as well as increasing the quality of their experience in the tourist destination and residents’ quality of life. In a world where tourism has become an important activity connected to new technological innovations, consumers face a number of challenges regarding their use. Tourism-specific services must be delivered optimally to the right consumer and at the right time. The most commonly used approaches to the concepts of "Smart Tourism" and "Smart Tourism Destinations" include key notions such as privacy preserving, context awareness, cultural heritage, recommender systems, social media, internet of Things, user experience, real time, user modelling, augmented reality, and big data. The study of the concept of innovation in tourism and tourist destinations is still in its infancy, given that tourism is currently a globally growing field, and it is necessary to better understand innovation in this sector. At the same time, companies use sustainability policies as a strategy for innovation and competitive differentiation. In order to meet the challenge of innovation in tourism and tourist destinations, we invite you to participate in the study of process innovations (such as innovations in production processes—back office—or in the delivery process—front office) and product innovations in countries with tourism potential by identifying future trends, aspects, and directions regarding their adaptation to new technologies. We appreciate well-documented theoretical and empirical approaches that are anchored in the reality of innovation in tourism destinations and tourism challenges.

The topics of this Special Issue may include, but are not limited to, the following research aspects:

• Application of the four types of service innovation—product innovation, process innovation, organizational innovation, and market innovation—in tourism;
• Innovation as a factor in stimulating investments in information and communication technology to improve the competitiveness and management of tourist destinations;
• Innovation and smart tourist destinations;
• New business models: innovation entrepreneurship;
• Changing environments and business models necessary for the tourism industry;
• Creative employees involved in innovation;
• Sustainable innovation business models and economic performance for the tourism industry;
• Social innovation in tourism;
• Social innovation (the ideas, processes, and solutions of innovation) as a source of creating social value;
• Challenges of Social innovation in the tourism industry;
• Social innovation solutions in tourism as an important developmental factor;
• Social innovation solutions in tourism and the transformation of the “customer-oriented” perspective into the “community-oriented” perspective, which includes the social capital of the community;
• Forces influencing innovation in tourism;
• External forces influencing the nature of innovation in tourism;
• Destination marketing and innovation;

Innovation and international tourism growth and development.

Dr. Gina Ionela Butnaru
Dr. Alina-Petronela Haller
Dr. Valentin Niță
Guest Editors

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• smart tourism
• smart tourism destinations
• privacy preserving
• context awareness
• cultural heritage
• recommender systems
• social media
• internet of things
• user experience
• real time
• user modelling
• augmented reality and big data
• tourism growth and development