Unit 3:

Developing Creativity and Understanding Innovation in Tourism

 Unit 3:
Developing Creativity and Understanding Innovation in Tourism

Concept of creativity
• Creativity is defined as the
tendency to generate or
recognize ideas, alternatives,
or possibilities that may be
useful in solving problems,
communicating with others,
and entertaining ourselves and
others.
• Creativity is the ability to come
up with new ideas and to
identify new and different
ways of looking at a problem
and opportunities.
 Developing Creativity and Understanding
Innovation in Tourism

Concept of creativity
How entrepreneurs do what they
do:
• Creative thinking + systematic
analysis = success
• Seek out unique opportunities
to fill needs and wants
• Turn problems into
opportunities
• Recognize that problems are
to solutions what demand is to
supply
 Developing Creativity and Understanding
Innovation in Tourism
Creative process
Creativity is a process that can be
developed and improved. Some
individuals have a greater
aptitude for creativity than
others.
Typical Creative Process
• Phase 1: Background or
knowledge accumulation
• Phase 2: The incubation
process
• Phase 3: The idea experience
• Phase 4: Evaluation and
implementation
 Creative process

Phase 1: Background or
knowledge accumulation

A person discovers that a new opportunity exists or a problem

needs resolution.
 Creative process
Phase 2: The incubation process

The person keeps the assembled information in mind for a

while. He or she does not appear to be working on the
problem actively; however, the subconscious mind is still
engaged. While the information is simmering it is being
arranged into meaningful new patterns.
 Creative process
Phase 3: The idea experience

The Idea is discovered ( keep a note)

Speeding up the Idea experience can be achieved through:
»Daydreaming
»Take regular breaks
» Put the issue to the back of your mind
 Creative process
Phase 4: Evaluation and
implementation

This phase involves reworking the idea from its rough draft
form. This is the most difficult part of the whole creative process.
To test the idea, entrepreneurs can:
• seek advice from knowledgeable people
• trust their instincts
If at any stage a major unworkable problem arises then it is
better to revert back to the previous phase
 Developing creativity in tourism
Richards and Raymond (2000) Definition of Creative Tourism: “tourism
which offers visitors the opportunity to develop their creative potential
through active participation in learning experiences which are
characteristic of the holiday destination where they are undertaken”.
• Arts and crafts
• Design
• Cookery, gastronomy and wine-making
• Health and healing
• Language
• Spirituality
• Nature and landscape
• Sports and pastimes
 Developing creativity in tourism
• Increasing the prospects for creative tourism
The destination itself needs to be creative
Think about what is distinctive about a place
Think about how these features can be linked
into local, national and global networks
Develop co-creation systems Develop links
between tourism, culture and creativity. Use
creative tourism as a tool for re-thinking
places
Recognizing tourism relationship
 Developing
functional perspective using brains
• Recognizing Relationships
– Looking for different or unorthodox relationships
among the elements and people around you.
• Developing a Functional Perspective
– Viewing things and people in terms of how they can
satisfy his or her needs and help complete a project.
• Using Your Brains
– The right brain helps us understand analogies, imagine
things, and synthesize information.
– The left brain helps us analyze, verbalize, and use
rational approaches to problem solving.
 Developing
functional perspective using brains
Left Hemisphere Right Hemisphere
• Verbal • Nonverbal
• Analytical • Synthesizing :produce a substance
by combining other substances
• Abstract: existing in thought or
as an idea • Seeing analogies: comparison
between one thing and another
• Rational
• Non-rational: not able to be
• Logical explained by reason
• Linear : arranged in or extending • Spatial: relating to the position,
along a straight or nearly straight line area, and size of things
• Intuitive: based on what one
feels to be true even
• Imaginative
 Ways to Develop Left- and Right-
Hemisphere Skills
Left-Hemisphere Skills
• Step-by-step planning of your
work and life activities
• Reading ancient, medieval,
and scholastic philosophy,
legal cases, and books on logic
• Establishing timetables for all
of your activities
• Using and working with a
computer program
• Detailed fantasizing and
visualizing things and
situations in the future
• Drawing faces, caricatures, and
landscapes
• Right-Hemisphere Skills
• Using metaphors and
analogies to describe things
and people in your
conversations and writing
• Taking off your watch when
you are not working
• Suspending your initial
judgment of ideas, new
acquaintances, movies, TV
programs, and so on
• Recording your hunches,
feelings, and intuitions and
calculating their accuracy
 Eliminating Muddling (Confusing)
Mind-Sets
– Either/or thinking
(concern for certainty)
– Security hunting
(concern for risk)
– Stereotyping (abstracting
reality)
– Probability thinking
(seeking predictable
results)
Characteristics of a Creative Climate:
– A trustful management that does not over control the personnel
– Open channels of communication among all business members
– Considerable contact and communication with outsiders
– A large variety of personality types
– A willingness to accept change
– An enjoyment in experimenting with new ideas
– Little fear of negative consequences for making a mistake
– The selection and promotion of employees on the basis of merit
– The use of techniques that encourage ideas, including suggestion
systems and brainstorming
– Sufficient financial, managerial, human, and time resources for
accomplishing goals
 Innovation in tourism
Innovation:
– Is the process by which entrepreneurs convert
opportunities (ideas) into marketable solutions.
– Is a combination of the vision to create a good
idea and the perseverance and dedication to
remain with the concept through implementation.
– Is a key function in the entrepreneurial process.
– Is the specific function of entrepreneurship.
 Sources of Innovation
– Unexpected occurrences
– Incongruities (a wealthy woman who drives an old
beaten up )
– Process needs
– Industry and market changes
– Demographic changes
– Perceptual changes
– Knowledge-based concepts
 Types of Innovation
• Invention:
• Extension:
• Duplication:
• Synthesis
Types of Innovation
 Principles of Innovation
• Be action oriented.
• Make the product, process, or service simple and
understandable.
• Make the product, process, or service customer-based.
• Start small.
• Aim high.
• Try/test/revise.
• Learn from failures
• Follow a milestone schedule.
• Reward heroic activity.
• Work, work, work.
Unit 3