The Impact of Innovations on the Business Model: Exploratory Analysis of a Small Travel Agency

Abstract

The objective of this exploratory paper is to analyse the innovations introduced by a small travel agency and their impact on the firm's business model in the specific context of a salt mine in Romania. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the business model of the small firm that did not introduce a single innovation. A case study provides rich data on "unbundling" made by the entrepreneur and the trade-offs decisions that affect the business model. The paper highlights the implications of the entrepreneur's decision to implement in a short period of time a "package" of product, process, marketing and organizational innovations and their impact upon the business model, and describes the transformation of the company due to changes in the environment (content and relationships among the building blocks of the business model).

A Business Model in Spa Tourism Enterprises: Case Study from Poland

“…Falencikowski [22] believes that a business model is a multi-component unit, developed and separated to present, in a simplified way, the manner of running a business, by describing the logic of value creation for the consumer and capturing its part by the enterprise. B. Rusu [23] also maintains the above assumption and understands the business model as a correlation system that enables the creation of value for customers based on enhanced planning of architecture of the designed system and correlated activities. A. Wiśniewski [24] presents a specific way of perceiving the revenue.…”

Business models in tourism: a review and research agenda

“…In particular, contributions address the challenges of integrating sustainability in destination business model design (Mihalič, Žabkar, & Cvelbar, 2012;Scheepens, Vogtländer, & Brezet, 2016) and hospitality management practices (Bohdanowicz & Zientara, 2009;Høgevold, Svensson, & Padin, 2015;Sarkar & Sinha, 2015). Contributions focusing on innovation investigated adoption and commercialization of new products and services by means of improved and new business models (Alegre & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2016;Hojman & Hunter-Jones, 2012;Huang, Lee, & Lee, 2009;Rusu, 2016;Souto, 2015). Side topics explored by few authors include the role of ownership structures at festivals (Andersson & Getz, 2009), competing taxation systems between destinations and online travel companies (Schiller, 2011), and changes in consumer behavior stemming from collaborative consumption (Kathan, Matzler, & Veider, 2016).…”

“…Alongside these two dominant design themes, there is a limited number of publications that present business models built around the notions of novelty (Rusu, 2016), and complementarity (Bieger & Wittmer, 2006;Frank, 2011).…”

“…For example, Scheepens, Vogtländer, and Brezet's (2016) circular transition framework showcases that regulators and providers of tourism services need to interact in catering to tourists in such a manner that the environment is protected for future use. In another example, Rusu (2016) discusses how the travel agent in a redeveloped salt mine destination had to educate other stakeholders to mutually design the local tourism experience. Finally, the smartphone app proposed by Koukopoulos and Styliaras (2013) required collaboration with museums and cultural heritage sites to create the content desired by app users.…”

Innovación y competitividad: micro y pequeñas empresas del sector agroindustrial en Cúcuta

“…Esto coincide con el trabajo de Rusu (2016), donde se concluye que es de gran importancia la decisión del empresario de colocar en práctica, por un periodo corto de tiempo, una innovación en el producto, en el proceso, la comercialización y la organización empresarial, evidenciando el impacto y transformación de la empresa debido a los cambios realizados.…”