Strategies and Barriers to Technological Innovation in the Hospitality Industry: A Qualitative Exploration

Abstract

Innovation is a concept that plays a crucial role in the success of the hospitality industry and provides many positive organizational outcomes. The concept of technological innovation in the hospitality industry has attracted great attention, especially due to the widespread impact of emerging technologies on organizations. The purpose of this study is to identify technological innovation strategies and challenges to successful innovation practices in the hospitality industry. 17 hospitality professionals worldwide, selected through convenience sampling, constitute the participant profile of this study. The current study, based on a qualitative research design, used text analysis to identify patterns in the data set. QSR NVivo 10 software was used to identify major themes from the transcripts. As a result of the analysis, 4 technological innovation strategies were identified, namely setting strategic direction, culture of innovation, organizational alignment and collaboration and partnerships, and 4 challenges were identified, namely lack of understanding technology, data overload, failure to meet user needs and the speed of change, which pose obstacles to innovation in the hospitality industry. This study contributes to innovation research in the hospitality literature by providing an in-depth evaluation of technological innovation strategies and the challenges in this process and approaching the topic holistically.