Organizational Factors, Factors of Innovation in Croatia’s Tourist Offer
Organizational Factors, Factors of Innovation in Croatia’s Tourist Offer

Author(s): Fani Kerum, Neven Šipić, Dijana Vuković
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Udruženje ekonomista i menadžera Balkana
Summary/Abstract: Tourism represents an important component of economic development in Croatia. The competitiveness of Croatia as a tourist destination largely depends on the level of quality of its tourism product in relation to key success factors. The attractiveness and diversity of the offers in tourism stand out as significant factors in the quality of the tourist products of Croatia. Hospitality and tourism, of which the hotel industry is an integral part, today represent significant activity in the global framework. It is this activity that provides employment and generates significant income, creating a large part of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the economies of tourism-oriented countries and a significant multiplier effect. The quality of the hotel offer is, in part, determined by the hotel’s ability to monitor, adopt, and implement innovative tourist products, services, and solutions for its guests and other important stakeholders. The ability of tourism companies today lies in the implementation and increasing utilization of the advantages of innovation, which thus becomes a decisive factor in the survival of tourism companies in today’s turbulent and unstable business environment. Today, tourism companies are forced to be innovative in order to survive in a changing business environment. Innovativeness can be defined as the degree to which an individual, compared to others, adopts novelties. From the point of view of tourism organizations, innovation represents openness to new ideas that are part of their culture. The innovativeness of tourist organizations, and therefore tourism, stems from the ability of tourist organizations to continuously transform knowledge and ideas into new tourism products, processes, and systems in order to ensure benefits for stakeholders. Understanding the innovation process is possible through the explanation of the linear and interactive models. In the linear model, the innovation chain starts with formal research and development activities, which are followed by applied research and product development. The next step after the development of a new tourist product is its commercialization. However, the innovative process most often does not have such a beginning, which is why an interactive model provides a better explanation, according to which there is no general order for how innovation occurs. Implementing change management strategies and continuously introducing innovations are crucial activities in hotel management. These efforts are essential not only for driving the hotel’s growth and development but also for ensuring its longterm survival. According to the above, the goal of the research is to determine the degree of transformational and transactional leadership, dimensions of corporate culture, and dimensions of corporate learning that contribute to innovations in the hotel, as well as to determine to what extent innovations affect the creation of value for hotel guests.

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