Innovation and Performance in Hotels in Kenya and South Africa

Abstract

Globalization of markets and the extreme and rapid growth of technology have made innovation and differentiation a necessity for every company (Song, van der Bij & Weggeman, 2006; Tajeddini & Trueman, 2008). Innovation is a significant ingredient at present to service companies generally and especially hospitality and tourism firms (Martínez-Ros and Orfila-Sintes, 2009). Innovation in hotels is particularly crucial since it keeps the product and service current and fresh for guests. However, empirical studies on innovation performance in the hotel sector remain limited (Erfurt-Cooper & Cooper, 2009; Orfila-Sintesb, CrespíCladera & Martínez-Ros, 2005). Moreover, most innovation studies in service and tourism have been conducted as case studies in only one country. Few researches have been done using survey methods in more macro contexts such as multi-country markets to explore contexts that differ due to a variety of issues including regulatory environments (Sandvik et al., 2014; Tajeddini, 2014). Also, an improved understanding is required of how interaction between technologies - online social networks and mobile technologies - and innovation types affect hotel performance (Ho & Lee, Y., 2007). The current study therefore, set out to achieve the following objectives: to identify and rank innovation types undertaken by hotel in South Africa (SA) and Kenya; to examine the relationship between determinants of innovation and innovation types in use in hotels in SA and Kenya; and to investigate the relationships between innovation types and different hotel performance dimensions in SA and Kenya. Thus, this research contributes to comprehensive understanding of the innovation types, determinants of innovation, as well as innovation – performance relationship in hotel research. Moreover, this research responds to previous calls to test innovation performance models in different contexts.