Sustainability, Big Data, and Corporate Social Responsibility

Evidence from the Tourism Industry

Mohammed El Amine Abdelli, Nadia Mansour, Atilla Akbaba, Enric Serradell-Lopez, Mohammed El Amine Abdelli, Nadia Mansour, Atilla Akbaba, Enric Serradell-Lopez

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000572469
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Technology & Engineering Research & Skills
• Edition: 1

This book aims to provide theoretical and empirical frameworks and highlights the challenges and solutions with using Big Data for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability in the field of digital transformation and tourism.

Sustainability, Big Data, and Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from the Tourism Industry offers a theoretical and empirical framework in the field of digital transformation and applies it to the tourism sector. It discusses Big Data used with CSR and sustainability for the improvement of innovation and highlights the challenges and prospects. It presents a modern insight and approach for use by decision-makers as an application to solve various problems and explores how data collection can shed light on consumer behavior making it possible to account for existing situations and plan for the future.

This book is intended to provide a modern insight for researcher, students, professionals, and decision-makers on the application of Big Data to improve CSR and sustainability in the tourism sector.

Part ISustainability and Tourism Businesses

1Innovation as a Key Driver of Sustainability in Tourism

Ekrem Aydın

DOI: 10.1201/9781003138051-2

CONTENTS

1. 1.1 Introduction
2. 1.2 Innovation in Tourism
3. 1.2.1 Product/Service Innovation
4. 1.2.2 Process Innovation
5. 1.2.3 Managerial (Administrative) Innovation
6. 1.2.4 Institutional Innovation
7. 1.2.5 Marketing Innovations
8. 1.3 Innovation Model in the Tourism Sector
9. 1.4 Development of Sustainable Tourism
10. 1.5 Sustainable Tourism
11. 1.6 Sustainable Tourism Development and Its Dimensions
12. 1.6.1 Social and Cultural Sustainability
13. 1.6.2 Environmental Sustainability
14. 1.6.3 Economic Sustainability
15. 1.7 Development of Innovation and Sustainable Tourism
16. 1.8 Sustainability of Tourism and Innovation
17. 1.9 Economic, Social, and Environmental Aspects of Innovation and Sustainable Tourism
18. 1.9.1 Economic Development Dimension
19. 1.9.2 Social Development Dimension
20. 1.9.3 Environmental Development Dimension
21. 1.10 Conclusion

1.1 Introduction

According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), tourism revenues and tourist arrivals have increased worldwide since 1950. Although this increase in tourist arrivals provides economic benefits to tourist destinations, it becomes difficult to satisfy the increasing needs and prevent damage to the natural, cultural, and social environment. Thus, to reduce the ill effects, the concept of sustainability has come to the fore in the tourism industry (Prud’homme and Raymond 2013). Considering the dependence of tourism activities on the social, cultural, and physical environment, sustainability has been shown as one of the main strategies that can be used to develop the tourism industry (Ceylan 2019). In the tourism literature, researchers have conceived the concept of sustainability as sustainable tourism development (Andereck 2009, Kuščer et al. 2017, Nunkoo et al. 2019, Park and Kim 2016, Poudel et al. 2014, Rasoolimanesh et al. 2017, Ribaric 2015). Sustainable tourism development refers to the practice of creating an equilibrium among the economic, environmental, and social benefits of tourism development and the impact of such action on tourist destinations. Moreover, sustainable tourism development aims to improve the community’s quality of life while simultaneously protecting the environment and other local elements for future generations (Rasoolimanesh et al. 2017).

While sustainability is crucial for the tourism industry, implementing this idea is still debated (Park and Kim 2016). Regarding this issue, some researchers suggest that innovation is one of the most crucial factors in supporting sustainability in the tourism industry (Booyens and Rogerson 2016, Elmo et al. 2020, Hjalager 1997, Horng et al. 2016, Marakova and Medved’ova 2016, Ribaric 2015). The long-term survival and consistent performance of tourism enterprises depend on their ability to be innovative (Elmo et al. 2020). In addition to eliminating the adverse effects of tourism on the environment and society, innovation also supports creating new ideas that will contribute to the sustainability of tourism destinations (Horng et al. 2016, Marakova and Medved’ova, 2016). Tourists prefer innovative tourist destinations over their noninnovative competitors. Therefore, innovation is the foundation of competition and sustainable tourism development (Ribaric 2015). Schumpeter’s innovation theory is the starting point (Alsos et al. 2014). According to Schumpeter, innovation is the research, discovery, development, advancement, acceptance, and commercialization of new processes, products, organizational structures, and procedures. This definition is generally accepted in all sectors, including tourism (Nordin 2003).

Within this framework, this section aims to reveal the contribution of innovation to sustainable tourism development. This section consists of Innovation in Tourism, Sustainable Tourism Development, Innovation, and Sustainable Tourism Development. Furthermore, the relationship between social innovation, eco-innovation practices, and sustainable tourism development is explained within the section on innovation and sustainable tourism development.

1.2 Innovation in Tourism

Innovation has become almost a prerequisite for the sustainability, survival, and future growth of modern industries operating in today’s highly competitive global market. As one of the different subsectors of the worldwide economy, tourism strives to expand in an intensely competitive environment. Therefore, it is not surprising that tourism companies are suggested to turn to innovations to keep up with the changing environment and gain a competitive advantage (Divisekera and Nguyen 2018). In other terms, the competitiveness of tourism enterprises depends solely on their ability to offer new products to meet the demands and requirements of potential customers and engage in innovative activities that can achieve higher-quality output at lower costs (Onan et al. 2020).

Flexible working hours, higher income, more free time, and the change in the value of holidays (seen as part of life) have created new lifestyles. Accordingly, customer requests and needs have also been altered. Punctuality, financial responsibility, convenience, speed, and fee have been perceived as essential service quality components. Therefore, tourism companies need to innovate to meet these changing customer types (Weiermair 2006). Innovation supports tourism companies in adopting new ideas, improving service processes, and boosting operational efficiency (Horng et al. 2016).

However, innovations for the tourism sector can be easily imitated by competitors. For this reason, the innovations must be sustainable and improved. This situation encourages tourism enterprises to compete and repeatedly innovate (Çamlı 2010).

According to Hjalager (2010), tourism is a sector with intense innovations. For example, Thomas Cook’s first railway excursion on which he took a certain number of people to England, Disney movies and theme parks, Roy Kroc’s acquisition of McDonald’s, and making the company the world’s number one in the fast-food sector are the examples of innovation in the tourism industry. Besides these, the creation of new tourism experiences can be seen as an innovation. For instance, consumer awareness toward the environment has led tourism com...