Envisioning destination intelligence wp

Envisioning destination
intelligence 3.0
<<TOURISM 3.0 WHITEPAPER SERIES >>
1. Approaching Tourism 3.0 from the regional level 2
2. Capturing intelligence in the outbound markets 2
3. Monitoring the tourism activity in the destination 8
4. Leveraging collective intelligence through open innovation 11
Jordi Pera Segarra
Envisioning Tourism 3.0 CEO
January 2016
CONTENTS

ENVISIONING DESTINATION INTELLIGENCE 3.0
w w w . e n v i s i o n i n g t o u r i s m . c o m 2
1. Approaching tourism 3.0 from the regional level
Fostering the adoption of the practices and values proposed in the Vision of Tourism 3.0 entails
transforming progressively the mindset of the tourism industry leaders towards a culture of
collaboration and innovation.
Such efforts may well start in the top levels of the regional tourism boards, governments or
industry associations. Either of these may take the lead in promoting the practices of Tourism
3.0 throughout the region down to the local levels, and the best way to do so is by establishing
a Destination Intelligence 3.0 system. This entails three main activities:
 Capturing intelligence in the outbound markets
 Monitoring the tourism activity in the destination
 Leveraging the collective intelligence through an open innovation system
Destination intelligence 3.0 sets the stage for tourism destinations to develop their innovation
strategy, providing a series of information flows and tools that facilitate and stimulate
destination stakeholders to envision the need for innovation not only on the product
development area but also on a more holistic approach encompassing all building blocks of the
business model to continually improve the destination’s competitiveness. Further, it envisions
how this practice is to become a key discipline in sustaining competitiveness and improving the
destination’s marketing efficiency and effectiveness.
2. Capturing intelligence in the outbound markets
The growth of the tourism business with emerging outbound markets and new destinations is
drawing an increasingly competitive scenario with plenty of opportunities. Moreover, the
markets are evolving rapidly with new business models, new communication & sales channels
and new market segments.
This major dynamism, innovation and market fragmentation requires a systematic analysis to
detect new trends, new key success factors, foresee its threats and take advantage of its
opportunities. Furthermore, along the last years there has been a significant decrease on the
tourism promotion profitability, which suggests the convenience of innovating in more efficient
marketing strategies and tactics.
2.1 Main benefits of capturing intelligence in the outbound markets
Market intelligence (MI) is a systematic process of search, selection, analysis and distribution
of information about the competitive environment, recognized and accepted by all the
organization and its stakeholders.
The market intelligence studies are to identify business opportunities and market trends,
analyze competitors, their practices and strategies, and all the variables that affect the
evolution of the competitive scenario in order to orientate the strategic planning.

The impact of the MI activities consists mainly of the support given to cost reduction decisions
(including risk reduction on the decisions to make) and the discovery of opportunities and
innovations that increase the value provided to the client. The knowledge generated by the MI
may be summarized in the following points:
 Detailed company profile of all potential collaborators.
 Best practices in marketing, management, innovation and new business models.
 Markets and segments attractiveness. Opportunities, market trends and evolution of all the
key factors influencing business development and profitability.
 Key information for the design, innovation and product development obtained from deep
demand analysis.
 Key information for the optimization of the company’s commercial missions in the outbound
markets, as well as for the Tourist Boards.
At the end, this brings the following benefits:
 Decrease in the risk of failure.
 Business diversification with the penetration in new markets and segments.
 Improvement in the competitiveness and the innovation process.
 A revenue increase from the opportunities of which we take advantage.
 A major profitability of the marketing investment.
2.2 Goals of outbound market intelligence research
There is a series of main goals to attain when researching in the outbound markets:
 Assess market and segment attractiveness, as well as feasibility of penetrating such
markets or segments and developing new products.
 Improve the quality of the strategic and operational decisions.
 Stimulate strategic and product innovation, as well as competitiveness improvements.
 Identify trends, opportunities and threats.
 Provide the necessary information to the operators for their International Marketing Plan,
also orientating and facilitating their commercial missions in the outbound markets.
 Analyze the dynamics of all the factors that may influence the strategy success.
 Monitor the image and positioning of the destination in all markets and segments.
 Evaluate possible cooperation strategies with tour operators and other companies.
The market intelligence studies provide the necessary information for both operators and
Destination Management Organizations (DMO) to optimize the design of their marketing
strategies and actions. This can be summarized in a series of specific objectives:
Analyze for each new market and segment (as applicable):
 Market size, evolution and perspectives
 Public types and characterization of their demand: sociological profile, seasonality, length
of the trip, types of services demanded, trip organization, advanced booking, motivations,
expenditure and price elasticity.
 Purchasing behavior: information sources, decision key factors, etc.

 Possibility of fostering customer loyalty, prestige and multiplying effect
 Quantitative and qualitative trends of both supply and demand.
 Key players, opinion leaders and other trendsetters.
 Associations, publications, events, fairs, portals, forums, blogs and social networks.
 Key competitiveness factors and requirements.
 Best practices in management and destination competitiveness improvement, marketing,
products, business models and technologies.
 Marketing strategies and actions. Minimum investment recommended.
 Tour operators, travel agents and web portals working with this segment. Positioning and
market share of every one, segment concentration, entries and exits. Estimated % of FITs.
 Segment attractiveness: analysis of the 5 competitive forces and growth potential.
 Analysis of competitiveness/price, distribution and offer variety compared between
destinations. Positioning of each destination.
 Knowledge and assessment of the destination by the tour operators and travel agents.
Analyze for each tour operator:
 Turnover and market share (globally and by segments). Volume of tourists per segment
and perspectives. Knowledge and assessment of our destination.
 Catalogue portfolio, products and destinations for each product.
 Kinds of targeted audiences and percentage of loyal customers.
 Positioning of the tour operator in the market.
 Kinds of packages offered (length, accommodation, seasonality, etc.)
 Interest in receiving information, participating in fam-trips and receiving commercial visits.
 Programming calendar and contracting strategy.
 Financial data
Analyze for each tour operator currently programming the destination:
 Activities and visits carried out during the trip.
 Effectiveness and profitability of the current marketing actions. Evolution of demand
towards our destination along the last 5 years. Expected evolution in the upcoming years.
 Client share (% of trips to our destination) per product, actual and potential value of the
tour operator.
 Explore strategies and actions to increase sales and customer loyalty
 Other destinations offered by the tour operator and compared analysis: positioning,
strengths, weaknesses and strategy of every one.
 Perceived positioning of our destination and suggested positioning.
 Destination assessment: strengths, weaknesses, satisfaction and risk of deprogramming.
Analyze the projected image of the destination and brand awareness:
 In the tourism guides and specialized publications
 Articles and reports in the press and TV
 Social media and related web pages
 Tour operator’s brochures.

2.3 Methodology and information sources
The main methodology for obtaining all this information is the interviews with tour operators
when visiting them, in workshops and during the fam-trips.
The collaboration and mutual understanding DMOs may establish when helping them with
business and product development is the key to obtaining the intelligence. The DMOs
privileged position as collaborators providing valuable support to the private operators allows
them to obtain more information than an independent consultant, and also at a lower cost.
The information to research a market segment may be obtained with a few interviews with the
key tour operators, complemented with other sources like publications, brochures, surveys and
interviews with experts and related associations.
The information for elaborating tour operator company profile programming our destination
should be obtained through in-depth interviews and brochure analysis; whereas the
information about tour operators not featuring our destination may be obtained through
telephone interviews and brochure analysis.
The main sources of information are:
 Tour-operators and travel agents
 Publications and newsletters
 Tourism fairs
 Congresses, conventions and seminars (papers, thesis, studies, presentations, etc.)
 Specialized consultants and journalists, special interest associations, etc.
 Internet and social networks.
2.4 Results and deliverables
Apart from improving the conventional market reports, the market intelligence allows to obtain
the following kinds of deliverables:
 Internal reports to support strategic and operational planning.
 Segment reports for many markets.
 Newsletter about the evolution of the outbound markets.
 Benchmarking and new trends reports.
 Qualified database with detailed profiles of tour operators and other potential partners
 Qualified database of media, freelance journalists, internet portals, forums, blogs, social
networks, segmented by product.
 Ad-hoc reports.
The MI will be used by staff at all levels, from the Managing director to the Product Managers.
Moreover, considering that the MI system is to benefit the whole regional tourism sector, the
deliverables may also be sent to the operators and local tourist boards.
A key success factor of a MI system is the rapidness in the distribution of the deliverables, as
an essential part of the MI value stays in having the intelligence before your competitors.

For that purpose, the system should provide deliverables of small dimension (news, articles, or
summaries) and fast production that allow its fast delivery process to the users. For the
exchange of information and its distribution to the users, there should be a technological
platform like an intranet from which the users could download the MI reports.
2.5 Implementation
The implementation of a MI system in an organization should be carried out in 4 stages:
Preparation: selecting a responsible for leading the MI unit, availability of the necessary
technological tools and presentation to the collaborators and users.
Launch: pilot project to test and demonstrate how the system works to the users and
collaborators, ad-hoc queries and informal feedback.
Consolidation: setting a MI product portfolio, application of a consistent MI analytical scheme,
well informed and exigent users, and formal evaluation process.
Extension: integration of the strategic and tactic intelligence, MI culture integrated in the
organization, and MI based on dialogue.
The MI unit may have a specific department or be integrated in the marketing or strategy
department. It may count with external consultants but most inputs should come from the
local marketing units in the outbound markets.
The MI cycle has 5 phases, for which there is a set of necessary competences:
Obtaining MI queries:
 Identification of decision makers and their needs of information
 Interview, communication and presentation skills
 Understanding of people and the decision maker’s orientation
 Knowledge of the organizational structure and corporate culture
 Needs detection and processing through the system
Capturing information:
 Knowing primary and secondary sources
 Knowing methods to access the sources
 Manage the sources
 Knowing how to guarantee the reliability of the sources
 Identifying deviances in the information
 Capacity for assessing assumptions
 Knowing the ethics principles in the information capturing
Analyzing and synthesizing information:
 Recognition of the interaction between the information capture and its analysis
 Use of inductive and deductive reasoning

 Knowledge of the basic analytical models
 Knowledge of the when and why to use the adequate analytical model
 Recognition of information gaps
Communicating the intelligence:
 Presentation skills.
 Empathy and advising skills.
 Organization and presentation of the findings according to the receiver’s characteristics.
 Graduation of the intelligence delivery.
Intelligence management, feedback and results evaluation:
 Definition of the intelligence function.
 Explanation of the role of the MI and the intelligence cycle.
 Knowledge of the MI unit models, its structure, organization and resources.
 Knowledge of MI evaluation techniques.
 Capacity of creating a MI culture within the organization.
Moreover, the key success factors in the implementation of a MI system are:
 The executives’ support in the definition of objectives, functions and resource assignment
and the participation of all the departments whose collaboration is needed.
 Training of the potential collaborators and users about the utility and the scope of the MI to
foster their capacity of bringing value and a collaborative attitude.
 Design of an incentive system to stimulate the collaboration of the people and departments
whose inputs are needed: definition of needs, solution testing and results feedback.
 Fostering informal relationships to achieve the best possible understanding between the MI
and several collaborative departments and users.
 Adequate structure, coordination and delivery process.
 Starting with modest objectives to obtain visible results.
2.6 Results evaluation
Especially critical in the initial development phases of the MI unit, the evaluation of the
obtained results is necessary both to justify the expenses and investments as well as for the
improvement process of the MI practice.
The evaluation may be carried out through a series of qualitative and quantitative indicators:
 Number of projects executed on time (Quantitative)
 User satisfaction (Qualitative& Quantitative)
 Contribution of the MI to the directors decisions (Qualitative)
 Increase of the MI queries by the directors and other users (Quantitative)
 Result of the projects (Qualitative)
 Increase in the company’s results (Quantitative)
 Profits/Expenses ratio (Quantitative)
 Reduction of the future organization costs (Quantitative)

The evaluation of the MI’s economic impact may be carried out by the following steps:
 Specification of the benefits and favorable results (entry in a new market)
 Measurement: transformation of the intangible values of the MI and tangible representation
(new tour operators programming the destination, new direct flights)
 Accounting: assigning an economic value (new revenue and profits)
Even if there may be difficulties in measuring or evaluating the MI results, not doing it may
lead to perceiving the MI unit as a cost more than a profitable practice.
3. Monitoring the tourism activity in the destination
Beyond researching the outbound markets in search for trends and opportunities, it is also
necessary to keep track of the current activity within the destination, as of a continuous
internal diagnosis of the local industry performance. Such monitoring system also intends to
open a new communication channel with tourists, to complement the information obtained
from the trade professionals in the outbound markets.
Even if the primary goals of monitoring systems are to obtain statistical data for the key
performance indicators and to observe the evolution of demand characterization through
quantitative methods, the new approach hereby proposed intends to expand the scope of the
monitoring system to establish a closer and more personalized relationship between the
destination and the tourists, especially with the ones who are more creative and socially
active, matching with the profile of the Tourists 3.0.
3.1 Monitoring destination performance and demand characterization
When monitoring the tourism activity in local destinations, the goals are to keep track of:
 Evolution of the accommodation capacity by type and location.
 Demand seasonality by location and type of accommodation
 Satisfaction of local businesses with the tourism activity
 Demand characterization, clustering different types according to their geographical origin,
length of stay, type of services used, seasonality, motivations, trip organization, type of
group, activities and places visited, loyalty to the destination (frequency) and expenditure.
 Tourists’ satisfaction, intention to recommend, and intention to repeat visit.
These are to be attained through quantitative research methods, resulting in a periodical series
of statistical data to be delivered throughout the industry stakeholders’ network. It is
important to note that these quantitative surveys may work as omnibus surveys, where
business owners pay for introducing questions related to their business’ information needs.
These data is to be obtained through two different quantitative methods:
 For data on occupancy rates, occupancy satisfaction, origin of demand and length of stay, a
telephone based survey to the accommodation owners has to be carried out every 2 weeks.

This should use a sample representing 20% of the total capacity, to obtain a 98.5% of
reliability. The occupancy rate is a weighted average for the number of available beds
calculated from the answers of each establishment in the sample.
 For data on characteristics of demand, satisfaction and intention to recommend, an on-site
survey has to be carried out either in the tourist areas or in the hotel lobbies. This is
designed in many stages: firstly, areas are stratified to ensure that samples are taken from
each area. Secondly, urban areas with significant tourist accommodation capacity are
selected. Then, establishments are sampled randomly from clusters. Finally, tourists are
selected in a systematic random way from within each establishment.
The results may be delivered through both web-based updates every two weeks and an Annual
Report to be delivered to all regional stakeholders.
3.2 Capturing tourist insights to improve competitiveness
With regard to the new approach intending to establish a closer relationship with tourists,
there could be many possible kinds of research goals:
 Tourists’ needs, problems, and concerns in view of identifying insecurities and discomforts
to be addressed through improvement or development of new services and facilities.
 Tourists’ motivations and concerns to sense the convenience of developing new products or
mission driven tourism activities.
 Tourists’ opinions to pre-test ideas on new products or marketing initiatives, to ensure their
viability and adequate development.
In this point, research should be conducted on the issues that concern the creative society, to
better orientate on defining missions that engage the human spirit of most stakeholders. The
researched issues are to be chosen by the Destination Management Organization (DMO) with
room for participation of local private stakeholders, as with the quantitative surveys. These
research goals are to be attained through qualitative methods, such as in-depth interviews and
focus groups to get a deeper insight on the researched issues. The access to the sample is
here a bit more complicated than in other research projects. Hereby are envisioned some ways
to identify the desired sample representatives, bearing in mind that these have to be selected
according to specific criteria related to the research goals in every case:
 In the quantitative surveys, through which the pollsters know their profile
 In social media discussions about the destination and topics related to the research goals
 In the accommodation, in collaboration with the supplier
 On-site when practicing activities related to the research goals
To successfully carry out this task it is necessary to clearly define the target profiles and get
the cooperation of the local service suppliers such as accommodation and activity suppliers,
which ultimately also benefit from such research. Once identified suitable candidates, these
should be invited to participate in a meeting with an interviewer or a focus group, in exchange
for a voucher for some of the destination’s services. The outcomes of the qualitative research
are to provide insights to orientate further research with quantitative methods.

3.3 Tracking tourist satisfaction through social media
Finally, a third set of research goals are those related to customer ratings and reviews, usually
obtained through social media tools or specific portals such as Tripadvisor. This is basically
another channel to obtain a mix of quantitative –ratings- and qualitative –reviews- information
to complement the other sources, taking into account that the customer feedback is voluntary
and hence the data cannot be considered statistically representative. Many research goals may
be envisioned in this section:
 Detailed ratings on specific accommodation services, restaurants, activities, etc.
 Detailed ratings on general issues about the destination such as feeling of locals’ hospitality,
cleanliness, availability of good information, transport services, etc.
 Reviews commenting about the tourists experience in all services.
 Reviews and discussions commenting about the tourists experience and impression on
general issues that they consider especially relevant about the destination.
Furthermore, as mentioned in the previous section, social media may be a good source of
candidates for the qualitative research. By analyzing the reviews, proactive and creative
tourists may be identified, and they are also likely to enjoy the chance of giving their opinions
and ideas about the destination needs and opportunities for improvement.
Mobile apps may also be designed to establish a direct relationship with the tourist,
incentivizing these to give feedback (reviews and ratings) on many aspects of the destination.
The potential of mobile apps for obtaining information from the tourists is especially
interesting, thanks to the capacity to convey such feedback on-site right after the experience
when it is still fresh in their minds.
Marketing 3.0 intends to engage tourists and other stakeholders in the social networks to
obtain their collaboration in co-creating experiences, stories and marketing contents, but also
to control the brand to keep its activities aligned with the mission and to become brand
ambassadors. Creative tourists are expected to be keen on providing ideas and critical opinion
on all issues related with the destination’s management and development. Therefore,
destinations developing towards a tourism 3.0 model are likely to attract many of these
creative tourists and have plenty of participation at no cost in the monitoring activities.
3.4 Monitoring destination performance for specific programs
Beyond the aforementioned general performance indicators, it may be convenient to monitor
results of specific competitiveness programs such as Quality certification for local businesses,
hospitality campaigns, service quality competitions, etc.
Such tracking may be carried out through many methods:
 Mystery tourist system, consisting of periodical service evaluation by outsourced
professionals pretending to be casual tourists.
 Survey on customer satisfaction in the accommodation facilities for the Quality certification.

 Survey on customer satisfaction in the airports or railway stations departure hall.
 Tracking of congestion and “early sold out” services through systematic observation, to
identify bottlenecks and unsatisfied demand for critical services.
3.5 Implementation of the monitoring system
The monitoring activities should be carried out by establishing Tourism Observatories in local
regions, which are in charge of collecting and processing the data to elaborate the research
outcomes. Then, these local Observatories are to be coordinated by an Observatory at an
upper regional level to elaborate aggregated statistics ensuring that the research methods and
criteria are unified and thus the data is comparable.
Such observatories should operate in cooperation with the local tourist boards and industry
associations, to facilitate access to data from the local businesses. Further, cooperation with
educational institutions at a University level should also be encouraged, to give prestige to the
Observatory and nurture it with know-how and young talents whenever necessary.
The Observatories are to become the reference research center for the tourism industry both
at a local and regional level, elaborating not only the regular statistics about tourism industry
performance, but also carrying out ad-hoc studies to satisfy special research needs from either
public bodies or private operators.
Tourism Observatories may be funded by industry associations, tourist boards (Government
bodies) and also through the ad-hoc services they provide to private businesses and public
bodies. Again, the monitoring system is an opportunity to foster cooperation between the
private operators and the public bodies.
4. Leveraging collective intelligence through open innovation
Beyond the aforementioned most conventional approaches, what sets Destination intelligence
3.0 apart is the development of an open innovation system accessible to all the tourism
industry stakeholders at a regional level.
An open innovation system works like a platform where innovation seekers (operators, tourism
boards, governments, consultants, etc.) look for new ideas on how to tackle their challenges
by connecting with innovation solvers (trade professionals, consultants, designers, and experts
in various fields) through open challenges where the problem is precisely formulated to help
solvers envision possible solutions and submit proposals, which are to be assessed and
rewarded as long as they help in solving the problem.
Among the posed challenges, there should be some non-rewarded ones for mission-driven
purposes (cooperation with destinations in developing countries, destinations recovering from
natural disasters, mission-driven destinations, etc.) to showcase how contribution to the
greater good is one of the most powerful motivators in innovation, drawing the attention of a
larger pool of creative talent than in other challenges.

Such a strategy is not only to support such mission-driven challenges, but also to raise
awareness throughout the industry about the potential of mission-driven tourism, as the open
innovation system leverages more intelligence and creativity for this type of purpose than for
any other, hence providing mission-driven destinations with a natural competitive advantage,
and compensating at least some of their constraints.
4.1 Structure of the open innovation system
The open innovation platform is to be structured in many areas of innovation, according to the
nature of the needed expertise. Hereby, six areas of innovation are envisioned:
 Technological solutions (mainly IT related)
 Environmental friendly solutions
 Product development
 Marketing designs for merchandise products
 Business model innovation (strategy challenges)
 Stories in different formats, videos, photos, etc.
Every innovation area would have its own pool of contributors, who receive updates about the
new challenges they are invited to participate in. There are three categories of challenges:
 Private challenges posted by private companies
 Public challenges posted by governments, public institutions and DMOs
 Public challenges for mission driven purposes, posted by non-profit organizations, related to
cooperation programs or for mission driven destinations
The difference between private and public challenges is mainly the publicity of the challenge,
which in the case of private challenges is more likely to be directed exclusively to a selected
group of innovators without revealing the name of the innovation seeker and keeping
maximum confidentiality. Conversely, public challenges are open to the whole platform,
without need to keep confidentiality on the identity of the innovation seeker.
Furthermore, there could be an “Ideation bank” to collect solvers initiatives on identified
problems or opportunities which have not yet been posed as a challenge, as they are not
among the top priorities for seekers or there is no budget to award solutions at that moment.
This ideation bank should give room to creative initiatives and work as a social media platform
where solvers may pay for enhanced advertising of their ideas and participants may vote for
their favorite ideas. The posted ideas should comply with a series of parameters, requiring
detailed and structured explanation of the idea, to filter the mass participation. The “Ideation
bank” would not only foster innovation, but also the promotion of new talents in the industry.
4.2 Operation of the open innovation system
In contrast with free ideation where the mass crowd of solvers is empowered to bring in their
ideas with little or no direction –as many companies have approached open innovation with

rather bad results-, the most effective method to deliver real solutions to the seekers is
challenge driven innovation. As aforementioned, this method consists of formulating specific
and actionable problems or opportunities, to better focus the innovation efforts of potential
solvers to a real solution that can eventually be implemented.
Following the main operational procedures as Innocentive -the leading operator in open
innovation-, the open innovation platform is to be managed by a pool of Project Managers (PM)
in charge of dealing with the Innovation challenges. Every time a public or private stakeholder
(seeker) wants to open a challenge, a PM is assigned to the challenge and follows these steps:
 The PM works with the Seeker in the formulation and definition of the challenge.
 Once the challenge is defined, the Seeker has to set the prize for the winning solutions. There
may be many prizes to take advantage of many ideas and encourage more participation.
 The PM has to define with the Seeker the terms of agreement to be offered in the tender.
 Beyond the registered innovators in the platform, the PM should search for more innovators
outside the platform, especially when the challenge requires specific expertise which is rather
scarce or inexistent among the registered innovators.
 Once all potential innovators have been invited to participate to the challenge, these have to
submit their solution by the specified deadline, complying with the stated requirements.
 When submitting the solutions, the PM screens them all to ensure that they all meet the
requirements established by the Seeker, prior to deliver them to the Seeker.
 Then, the Seeker may decide which solutions are suitable and award as many as he
considers, or none at all if any solution is good enough.
 In the case of discarded solutions, the Seeker has signed an agreement upon which he
cannot use the non-awarded ideas without permission of the Solver. To guarantee the
accomplishment of this agreement, a pool of Innovation controllers are empowered to carry
out Innovation audits on the “Seeker companies” to make sure that such ideas are not used.
Regarding intellectual property (IP) transfer, there are many possible options to regard:
 IP may be fully transferred to the Seeker, especially when the reward is according to it.
 IP may be transferred under a non-exclusive license to the Seeker, if the reward is too low.
This issue is to depend also on the nature of the assignment, taking into account that some
innovations are only applicable to one case, because of the uniqueness of the Seeker or
because the job is tailored for the Seeker, such as a graphic design.
The funding of the platform may come from two complementary sources:
 Brokering commission for every challenge managed to be paid by the Seeker.
 Sponsorship by many industry stakeholders, including the Government.
 Exploitation of patented technologies or designs owned or co-owned by the platform as a
result of some challenges or initiatives where there was no specific seeker to pay for the
property transfer. This way, the platform may become an innovation sponsor.
The platform should engage a vast range of shareholders within the industry, encompassing
private businesses, industry associations, financial institutions, technology transfer institutions,
educational institutions, governments and even non-profit organizations.

4.3 How to foster contribution and collaboration among innovators
It is necessary to develop incentive systems to recognize and reward collaborative partnerships
between innovators. Mind that the most powerful motivators that drive contribution are:
Contribution to the greater good. As long as innovations contribute to improve the
community’s quality of life to some extent, this is itself highly rewarding. Intrinsic motivation is
actually the primary driver, as a satisfactory result is already quite rewarding.
Peer recognition. One of the highest motivators –probably the highest- is the status and
recognition attained through contributions. It is therefore crucial to find ways of recognizing
contributors, rewarding them with appropriate community prestige.
Compensation. It is necessary to think of a flexible system of compensations, according to
the various motivations within the pool of innovators. Beyond money rewards, it is necessary
to find out other kinds of compensations that contributors would be willing to strive for.
Fostering collaboration in the innovation efforts poses many challenges, like the design of an
appropriate system of rewards to tackle critical issues such as intellectual property transfers
and confidentiality, among other concerns such as building a culture of trust.
The best way to start with collaborative innovation is in mission driven challenges that appeal
to the contributors’ human spirit rather than compensation. The collaboration in non-profit
challenges is expected to progressively weave interaction and networking among innovators,
as well as trust among the frequent contributors. Such practice is also expected to inspire
reflection about the design of collaboration systems for compensated challenges.
4.4 How to attract talent to the open innovation platform
The innovation platform should market its value proposition not only to the whole industry
stakeholders throughout the region, but also to all potential contributors in and outside the
industry. The process starts by identifying a pool of champions who are willing to showcase the
benefits of open innovation for both contributors (solvers) and receivers (seekers).
By identifying a group of visionaries in both sides of the platform, the conditions are set to face
the first challenges, the ones which have to showcase how the open innovation works, and
how it may contribute to improving the competitiveness of the whole industry. As soon as a
few of these innovation challenges show good results and satisfaction in both sides of the
process, a greater group of early adopters is likely to become interested in participating.
As stated before, beyond rewards, the great motivators to take into account are the will for
contribution to the community’s progress and well-being, and the will for recognition and
prestige among industry peers. Such motivators suggest two main strategies to attract talent:
 Promote innovation challenges for non-profit purposes. Such challenges may be focused on
helping destinations in developing countries, having suffered natural disasters, or mission
driven tourism organizations. Such challenges could be sponsored by private companies.

About Envisioning Tourism 3.0 Ltd.
Envisioning Tourism 3.0 Ltd. is a consulting firm building thought leadership in
strategy innovation for tourism destinations, designing innovative business
models, intelligence and marketing systems to envision how tourism
destinations may embrace the trends labelled under “The vision of tourism
3.0”, encompassing collaborative models, open innovation, human spirit
marketing, product co-creation, storytelling and culture shift towards
innovation and collaboration, among others.
 Organization of events to award best contributors and give them public recognition.
These and other strategies should be supported by marketing the open innovation platform to
potential contributors in their communities and favourite media channels, which would entail
social media, magazines, journals, public presentations, etc.
A more detailed explanation about the operation of an open innovation system is to be
provided in the Whitepaper “Envisioning open innovation in destinations”.
Envisioning Tourism 3.0 Ltd. invites all readers to share their opinions on the exposed visions
and methods in the blog www.envisioningtourism.com. Readers’ reviews and contributions are
very appreciated, as they help us to improve the quality of our contents as well as extending
the explanation of our visions whenever necessary. You are welcomed to participate in
depicting how Tourism 3.0 may shape the future destination models, marketing and
development strategies.
References
 Foundation of Tourism Studies Costa Daurada, Tourism Observatory. Annual report 2002
 Joaquin Tena Millan, Alessandro Comai. Curso de Inteligencia Competitiva y Vigilancia
Tecnologica. IDEC 2007.
 Karim R. Lakhani. InnoCentive.com. Harvard Business School. June 2008
 Stephen Shapiro. 10x Innovation ROI on Your Internal Collaboration. Innocentive
Whitepaper
 Braden Kelley. Harnessing the Global Talent Pool to Accelerate Innovation. Innocentive
Whitepaper.
© 2013 Envisioning tourism 3.0 Ltd. All rights reserved

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