ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an exploratory study of current innovation perspectives in the European hotel and accommodation industry. It aims to capture current opinions and discourses about innovation, and about practices, and to disentangle the thinking about types and sources of innovation. The chapter introduces nine cases of innovation in the European accommodation sector, interprets selected statements taken from qualitative interviews with managers and owners of these accommodation cases and critically overviews a set of innovation awards in the hospitality industry. It investigates the types of current thinking on innovation and innovative action that can be found among selected managers and owners in the European hotel and accommodation industry and in international hotel innovation awarding practice over recent years. The chapter highlights potential touch points to the discussion on strategic management concerning determinants of firm performance, which has become known as the debate between market-based and resource-based approaches.
