Empowering Open Innovation Tourism Networks

The project aims to enhance innovation capacity in tourism as a strategic component of competitiveness in order to improve Serbia’s TTDI index, following the European Tourism Agenda 2030, which promotes data-sharing initiatives in tourism, especially those related to innovation. The project will enable innovation-driven, sustainable tourism development by engaging stakeholders in the tourism ecosystem to share a wide range of innovative tourism practises through an open innovation tourism network that will be formed in Vrnjačka Banja, one of the most visited tourism destinations in Serbia.

Open innovation provides access to external sources of knowledge, skills, ideas and solutions that are beneficial for various tourism businesses, especially entrepreneurs and SMEs that dominate the tourism industry and often lack the resources to capitalize on new opportunities in the very dynamic tourism market. Through an open innovation network, tourism stakeholders gain access to intellectual capital that they lack, such as human, structural and relational capital.

Partners from the V4 countries, which are much better positioned (Poland (27), Czech Republic (33) and Hungary (37)), are invited to support the formation of such a network by sharing the know-how of tourism networks in their countries. The project task is to lead the shift towards the open innovation paradigm by helping stakeholders to open up their boundaries, overcome scepticism and hesitation and build a network based on trust and commitment.