New technology and tourism industry innovation: evidence from audio-visual patented technologies

Abstract

Purpose Patenting behaviour in the tourism sector has received little academic attention due to a wider belief that innovation in tourism commonly involves improving the services in ways that are hardly patentable. This paper aims to address this oversight by focusing on patent analysis as means to evaluate the innovation trends in tourism. Design/methodology/approach Building on an analysis of historical series of patents worldwide from 1996 to 2016, this paper explores the trends in the tourism sector by focusing on audio-visual technologies. The study used an evaluation of the 8,785 emerging patents, in terms of co-occurrences, applying hierarchical cluster analysis, factor analysis and multidimensional scaling. Findings The findings suggest that there is a gradually increasing interest in innovation in tourism, which is growing faster than most of the other sectors explored here such as transportation and pharmaceuticals. The outputs also reveal the inventive effort of tourism industry in new technologies for developing utility models for tourists. Originality/value The study contributes to tourism theory and practice by offering an overview of current/future applications of new technologies in tourism along with future trends, and mapping the main areas that these technologies might affect.

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