EXPERT CONCEPTS OF INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HOTELS

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Introduction
In view of the fact that innovation and entrepreneurship are the major trends in the tourism and hospitality industry and the entry technology for the tourism and hospitality industry is easier for start-ups than for high-tech industries and for small and medium-sized enterprises with low thresholds for investment, the demand for business start-ups by the general public has become more and more frequent The larger the cultivation of talents is, the more intense it is. At present, foreign countries have begun to pay more attention to the tourism and hospitality industry for innovation and entrepreneurship (Weiermair, Stiller, & Mossenlechner, 2006; Zapalska, Brozik, & Rudd, 2004; Lee, Hallak, & Sardeshmukh, 2016), there is a lack of integration and comprehensiveness. Most studies only focus on the entrepreneur's personal characteristics, entrepreneur's personal factors, and entrepreneurial psychology (Hisrich, 1990; Littunen, 2000; Zapalska et al., 2004; Ramos-Rodriguez et al., 2012). Compared with the previous single-level discussion, this study will explore the key elements of innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality industry through expert interview.
Theoritical Development
Innovation plays an important central role in entrepreneurship (Hebert & Link, 2006). In the past, there was also a lot of empirical research that identified innovation as a tenet of hotel organization performance (Agarwal, Erramilli, & Dev, 2003; Grissemann, Plank, & Brunner-Sperdin, 2013; Lin, 2013; Lee et al., 2016). Hotel industry products are difficult to protect through patents, etc. Therefore, continuous product innovation is very important for the hotel industry and is the main factor in keeping the leading competitive edge in the industry (Agarwal et al., 2003). What's more, implementing a new management structure, improving operational efficiency through new technologies, and new logistics and delivery systems make the enterprise a price-competitive advantage with lower costs due to innovation (Lin, 2013). In addition Enz and Siguaw (2003) believe that hoteliers can gain more competitive advantage if they can integrate and implement innovations in daily operations. From the study of Ndubisi and Iftikhar (2012), it is found that entrepreneurship really affects the innovation of SMEs. All in all, the current tourism and hospitality industry in Taiwan is mostly characterized by SMEs. According to the literature review, this study finds that innovation is the intermediary variable that catalyzes the initiation of entrepreneurial activity by innovation.
Research Design
The data on which this paper is based consist of expert concepts of hotel innovation and entrepreneurship in Taiwan and investigations into their views on innovation and entrepreneurship, which have developed over the course of their specialized experience. The experts had an average of 13 years of experience in researching, teaching, or hospitality management in the field of hotel innovation and entrepreneurship. The scholars we selected had excellent academic reputations and teaching experience in innovation and entrepreneurship. Most of the industry experts selected had experience in assisting hotels to carry out their innovation and entrepreneurship, whose duties are relevant to organizational innovation and entrepreneurship implementation and whose corporations have pursued innovation and entrepreneurship related activities that can be found in mass media or are certified in innovation and entrepreneurship related practices.
Result and Conclusion
As the hotel industry continues to expand, innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives are imperative. In this study, the innovation and entrepreneurship conceptual framework in the hotel industry contains not only the elements of personal factors, organizational factors, but also innovation and entrepreneurship performance, such as competitive advantages. That is, hotels can implement innovation and entrepreneurship through personal or organizational factors. For instance, encouraging members to interact and learn together, through mutual trust toward a common goal, and then create business and personal fruitful. It can provide a clear and complete process of an innovation and entrepreneurship program, which is important for practitioners to reduce uncertainty and the cost of trial and error and increase their motivation to practice.