Conceptual bases of innovation management of tourism enterprises

Abstract

The relevance of the work consists in the following. Tourism is appropriately considered one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy of the XXI century. Under conditions of permanent economic crisis and therefore intense competition, the main task of the tourist enterprises is to conquer (hold) a leading place in its segment of the market of tourist services, gaining and increasing profits. One way to draw attention of consumers to their services is to offer to the market such a service which would be different from the existing ones. This should be contributed by the implementation of innovations. The issue of management of innovation activity of tourist businesses remains open and requires further consideration by scientists. 

The aim of our study was to define a framework of provisions for the management of innovation activity of tourist enterprises and to substantiate measures for its improvement. The set scientific tasks were performed with the help of comprehensive general scientific methods: analysis, synthesis and generalization.

We examined the definitions of "innovation", "innovating activity", "innovation capacity" in relation to the specifics of the tourist business and tourist enterprises of Ukraine.

The need for the involvement of managers of tourist enterprises to form the innovation potential of these enterprises was substantiated. We proposed to specify the concept of "innovation potential of tourist enterprise" as an opportunity to transform and streamline the experience and prevailing stereotypes of the interaction of the subjects of the business process and the concept of "innovation of the tourist company" as a set of scientific, organizational, technological, commercial, financial measures that promote innovation. It was stressed that to discuss the innovation potential of the company is possible only in the context of the tandem “innovation culture of an enterprise” and “professional culture of the manager”. We determined three components of the innovative activity of a tourist enterprise: activities focused on finding or creating new tourist products, new methods of servicing customers, pricing policy, etc.; activity aimed at the completion of the measures implemented earlier, to the level of innovative projects (services, products, technologies), oriented to the needs of the tourist market; measures for the implementation of innovative projects or technologies of production and service provision.

The scientific novelty of the work is in the proposal to consider for the first time "the innovation potential of the tourist company" as an opportunity to transform and streamline the experience and prevailing stereotypes of the interaction of the subjects of the business process and “the innovating activity of the tourist company" as a set of scientific, organizational, technological, commercial, financial measures that lead to innovation. 

The practical value of the work lies in the possibility of using studied definitions of "innovation", "innovative activity", "innovation capacity", "innovation potential" in the practical work in the field of tourist business. 

The basis of further research might be studying the impact of innovative changes on the organizational culture of tourist enterprises.