“ We just do!”
The silent hurdle of innovation
An entrepreneurial attitude and open-innovation skills lay the foundation for successful products and services. Swedish tourism actors introduced several innovative solutions during the pandemic to comply with evolving regulations and keep their businesses running. The assumption from both research and practice was that several lessons had been learned and that they probably would influence future innovation.
A key requirement for upgrading and improving innovation processes within a company is to make them transparent. This case study, involving more than 30 interviews with tourism entrepreneurs, found that lessons were learned but not formalized. The innovation processes were kept invisible and treated as regular work. Seemingly, this led to few, if any, new services being retained. Therefore, instead of building a sustainable future as expected, the industry reverted to business as usual.