Innovations and Hotel Performance in the Aftermath announcement of Qatar Hosting FIFA 2022 World Cup

Abstract

The innovation-performance relationships continue to raise an ongoing debate in which the existing literature yields no conclusive results mainly in the tourism sector of resource-rich countries. This paper contributes to the literature by proposing a theoretical framework which links four innovations types to five types of performances in the hotel industry. Using a sample of all three, four and five stars hotels in Qatar over six months between 2016 and 2017, the results show the existence of an innovative path beginning from organizational innovation leading to an improvement of the hotels' financial performance. Specifically, the findings suggest that organizational innovation is the stronger driver of service innovation, and market performance is the main driver of financial performance. Accordingly, the results have several recommendations for hotels’ managers and Qatari policymakers for successful innovation implemention. The evidence also provides a better understanding of innovation types that drive hotels’ performance in the developing world, which may differ from the developed countries.