Measuring Innovation in Mountain Destinations

Innovation is an important tool for increasing the competitiveness of businesses or tourism destinations. In the mountain destinations the innovation has to be implemented in accordance to the principles of sustainable development. It is therefore necessary to measure the innovation rate and to explain the influence of various innovations groups on the development of mountain destinations.

The aim of the paper is to explore the structure of innovations in the Slovak and Swiss mountain destinations and to find out their innovation rate. In the context of measuring the innovations, two fundamental approaches are explained. The innovations implemented in 34 Slovak and 29 Swiss mountain destinations in 2013 are analysed on the basis of the information published in annual reports, which were complemented by the interviews with the managers of mountain destinations. The identified innovations are classified into innovations groups and ranked. The innovation rate in the defined innovations groups and the comprehensive innovation rate for all mountain destinations are detected. The article also explains the connection between the innovation rate and the destination life cycle phase.