ABSTRACT
It has been commonplace in tourism publications to start articles or books with citations of the numbers of tourists, their estimated economic impacts and the fact that the tourism industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world economy. Having invited readers to gaze in wonder at the scale and the rate of change in the tourism sector, these publications move on to consider the real objective of their analyses, with no more than a sideways glance at the innovation processes that drive the changes behind such ‘startling’ data. This applies as much to the constant accumulation of incremental changes as to the small number of revolutionary changes that redefine the arena of tourism occupied by firms, tourists and other agents. The growth of clubbing in Ibiza provides one of the more spectacular examples of innovation (Box 1.1) and shows how a single innovation can, under favourable circumstances, lead to reshaping of an entire tourism landscape.
