Whilst a number of studies have examined the effects of biodiversity conservation on the delivery of ecosystem services, they are often limited in the scope of the ecosystem services (ES) assessed and can suffer from confounding spatial issues. This paper examines the impacts of nature conservation on the delivery of a full suite of ES across nine case studies in the UK, using expert opinion. The case studies covered a range of habitats and explore the delivery of ES from a 'protected site' and a comparable 'non-protected' site. By conducting pair-wise comparisons of ES delivery between comparable sites our study attempts to mitigate confounding cause and effect factors in relation to spatial context in correlative studies. The analysis showed that protected sites deliver higher levels of ecosystem services than non-protected sites, with the main differences being in the cultural and regulating ecosystem services. Against expectations, there was no consistent negative impact of protection on provisioning services across these case studies. Whilst the analysis demonstrated general patterns in ES delivery between protected and non-protected sites, the individual responses in each case study highlights the importance of the local social, biophysical, economic and temporal context of individual protected areas and the associated management.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role of innovation strategy on economic sustainability in the hospitality industry. The focus is on the tourist hotels in Tanzania.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses survey of tourist hotels (n = 346) in the country’s Coastal and Northern tourist circuits. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesized relationship.
Findings
The findings indicate that innovation strategy in the industry emphasizes on standardized services; service quality; product introduction readiness and lastly on technology usage. Innovation strategy positively relates with the economic sustainability performance. Specifically, the strategy promotes hotels' sustainable growth, resource management long-term profitability, customer satisfaction and value chain management.
Practical implications
The findings elucidate on how sustainability can be integrated with core business strategies, to make corporate sustainability a reality. The findings also enlighten on the need for hotels to focus on innovation strategy to benefit from sustainability related opportunities. Moreover, the ability to understand customers’ needs and develop innovative services that offer social and environmental solutions can have an important implication on long-term economic success.
Originality/value
Most studies in the hospitality industry focus on innovative strategies geared towards environmental management. Hence, understanding how innovative strategy influences long-term economic sustainability as a core focus of any business endeavour is important. This study contributes to that body of knowledge as it uses innovation strategy based on Schumpeterian entrepreneurial approach in understanding the role of innovation on economic sustainability.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.