ABSTRACT
The notion that territorial agglomeration provides the optimum context for an innovation-based learning economy promoting localized learning and endogenous regional economic development has become well established in the innovation literature (Asheim 2002; Asheim and Coenen 2004). From such a perspective, innovation is ‘an intrinsically territorial, localized phenomenon, which is highly dependent on resources which are location specific, linked to specific places and impossible to reproduce elsewhere’ (Longhi and Keeble 2000: 27), so that the regional and local levels are also important sites for innovation. Such perspectives have been closely allied with two key related concepts: regional innovation systems (RISs) and clusters. As Asheim and Coenen (2004: 2) emphasized: ‘Even though both concepts are closely related, they should not be conflated.’ This is an error which has been common in the relevant tourism literature on the subject (Michael 2006). Indeed, the failure to distinguish between the two concepts is a reflection of the capacity of policy makers and their advisers, to utilise ‘off-the-shelf’, ‘bestpractice’ cluster, regional innovation or competitiveness solutions drawn ‘from the experience of successful regions or some expert manual’ (Amin 1999: 371).
