Creative Outposts: Tourism's Place in Rural Innovation

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of local tourism innovation in order to see how tourism development benefits tourism stakeholders including the local community. The paper is concerned with the social impacts of tourism and contends that there is a latent positive social capital in rural communities. Some "creative outposts" manage not just to survive but to thrive, and tourism often acts as a catalyst for innovative local development. Examples of tourism innovation can be new and better interactions among tourism stakeholders as well as changes in institutional arrangements. Entrepreneurs and institutional stakeholders are interviewed to investigate the dynamics of local tourism innovation. The social dimension in which tourism stakeholders operate is poorly understood and this paper presents a case study of Jokkmokk village with results showing tourism has a subtle yet palpable positive social role in the community. Themes emerging from the interviews are: the tourist office and tourism firms coevolve over time, tourism networks are loose and project-based, tourism is a desirable diversifier, and tourism contributes to the local leisure space. Particular focus is given to the fact that this is an Arctic rural community, and the research provides a basis for understanding tourism innovation systems in this context. Tourism development is found to be complementary to rural coping strategies in "creative outposts".

Unpacking the geography of tourism innovation in Western Cape Province, South Africa

“…Embeddedness refers to the ''the extent to which a social community operates in terms of shared norms of co-operation, trustful interaction and 'untraded dependencies' (Dosi 1998) as distinct from competitive, individualistic, 'arm's length exchange' and hierarchical norms" (Cooke, 2001:960). Tourism firms often make use of local (often personal and informal) networks which are dense, but loose in character, low in quality, and weak in strength (Brouder, 2012;Hoarau, Kline, 2014;Sørensen, 2007;Sundbo et al, 2007;Weidenfeld, Hall, 2014). Fuglsang et al (2011) indicate that informal networking based on personal networks is evident in tourism destinations.…”

“…Novelli et al (2006) argue that collaboration between local authorities, supporting bodies, education and research institutions, and local firms at destination level is essential to foster tourism innovation. However, functioning tourism innovation networks (or systems) at destination level are observed only in a few cases, notably in the Nordic context (Brouder, 2012;Hjalager, 2010;Hoarau, 2014;Huijbens et al, 2009). Common characteristics of innovation networks as observed in the Nordic context (cf.…”

“…Local embeddedness is a critical consideration for tourism firms in relation to their innovation performance (cf. Brouder, 2012;Fuglsang et al, 2011;Hoarau, Kline, 2014). Embeddedness refers to the ''the extent to which a social community operates in terms of shared norms of co-operation, trustful interaction and 'untraded dependencies' (Dosi 1998) as distinct from competitive, individualistic, 'arm's length exchange' and hierarchical norms" (Cooke, 2001:960).…”

“…Brouder, 2012;Fuglsang et al, 2011;Hjalager, 2010;Hoarau, 2014;Huijbens et al, 2009), several tourism scholars point out that there is a need for further empirical investigations and analysis regarding the geography of tourism innovation; spatial scales on which tourism innovation occurs; and tourism innovation systems (Hjalager, 2014;Sundbo et al, 2007;Weidenfeld, Hall, 2014;Williams, 2014). Although some investigations have been done on rural tourism innovation (Brouder, 2012;Carson et al, 2014;Hall, Baird, 2014;Hjalager, 2010;Hoarau, Kline, 2014), there is a dearth of research on the geography of innovation in tourism, most especially in urban settings and particularly in the global South (cf. Booyens, 2016;Booyens, Rogerson, 2015;Hoogendoorn, Rogerson, 2015).…”

“…In this context, networking behaviour is of central importance for learning and enhancing technological capabilities (Huijbens et al, 2009;van Geenhuizen, Soetanto, 2013;Williams, 2014). An emerging theme in the tourism innovation literature is the conceptualisation of innovation as a relational process which emphasises the significance of networking behaviour by tourism firms (Brouder, 2012;Brouder, Eriksson, 2013a;Hjalager, 2014;Williams, 2014). Networking often takes on systemic characteristics.…”