A model of collaborative innovation between local government and tourism operators

The improvement of services offered by public administrations in general affects tourism management and is, therefore, an issue that has led to numerous studies on the optimization of resources. Examples of such analyses include a sports facility public body (Rodríguez et al. 2010), the proposal of a multidimensional model to measure the trust that a tourist destination holds based on its institutions (Marinao and Chasco 2012); or monitoring the financial condition of municipalities of Galicia (Buch and Cabaleiro 2011). Other examples of the effects of public administration policies on tourism include an e-book lending library (Clavero et al. 2009) or, with regard to the closeness of local government to the citizen perspective, E-Government is currently one of the issues of concern for experts, and it has been studied to monitor the stages of its implementation (Muñoz-Cañavate and Chaín Navarro 2004), and also for its quality and performance (Soler-López 2013). León and Zapico (2003) indicate that the goal of e-Government is to illustrate in practice how citizens and businesses can reap benefits from online public services in their everyday needs and the carrying out of non-face-to-face administrative tasks from an online platform (Bustelo and García-Morales 2008).

Tourism-based collaborative innovation has given way to several studies, which focus on a variety of aspects, such as making effective use of the opinions of virtual communities of users on tourist services in order to innovate (improve) these services (Baglieri and Consoli 2009), or as an opportunity for less developed countries, e.g., Gambia and Tanzania, to differentiate their tourist products by making them more competitive (Carlisle et al. 2013) by promoting an area to encourage innovation and the business spirit where the importance of institutional support is also shown by encouraging the creation of networks, knowledge transfer and better practices. Along these lines, Nunkoo (2015) presents a study about the Niagara region in Canada, which confirms that suitable tourist development has a determining impact on political trust. Klodiana et al. (2012) identify the necessary optimization of resources that promote tourism used by local government, and the role of institutions in forging a sustainable model. The collaboration needed to produce sustainable models has been examined in several studies, although it has been limited in some cases by the government’s interventionism, as stressed by Wang and Honggang (2014), since high interventionism diminishes the performance of the tourist companies that depend on natural resources.

Collaboration between public and private sectors, (PPP), stands out as a strategic tool for tourist development, where the fragmented tourist offer, combined with the need for overall tourist products that satisfy customers, favors cooperation in tourist regions. The reason for reaching this type of agreement and the nature of such associations has been widely acknowledged, for example in the work of Selin and Chavez (1994, 1995). These authors define it as a collaboration with a purpose shared by both agents, who would otherwise be independent.

After several studies into collaborative innovation or PPP in tourism, Queiroz and Rastrollo-Horrillo (2015) state that there are five theories that justify the decision to collaborate in tourism: (1) the Resource Dependence Theory (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978), where stakeholders possess important resources through which they are able to control other types of resources (Greenwood 1993; Wang and Fesenmaier 2007; Nordin and Svensson 2007); (2) the Transaction Cost Theory (Williamson 1975), which justifies collaboration to reduce the costs of information and negotiation to acquire competitive advantages (Beritelli et al. 2007; Wang and Fesenmaier 2007; Wang 2008); (3) the Strategic Management Theory (Porter, 1990; Prahalad and Hamel 1990) by applying the creation of a complete tourist product that offers an all-round tourist experience, which is achieved by the complementarity of agents (Pechlaner and Tschurtschenthaler 2003; Wang and Fesenmaier 2007; Czernek 2013); (4) the Network Theory (Freeman and McVea 1984; Granovetter 1985; Wood and Gray 1991; Gulati 1995) which states that relations among agents are promoted by recognition, mutual acceptance and seeking common interests; (5) the life cycle theory (Czernek 2013; Santos et al. 2014) which identifies endogenous factors that can determine competitiveness in view of the entry of new competitor tourist destinations.

It can thus be concluded that innovative collaboration between public administrations and private companies that manage tourist products (PPP) has resulted in numerous research cases, and that an increasing number of researchers (Caffyn and Jobbins 2003; Velasco 2007; Dinica 2009; Beaumont and Dredge 2010; Dredge and Whitford 2011; Moscardo 2011; Hultman and Hall 2012) defend the greater participation of residents and other stakeholders in sustainable local tourism development, defined by the UNWTO (2005) as “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.”

In light of the importance of Spanish tourism on a national and European scale, we focus on the efforts of one town to develop a public private partnership model that can be replicated in other contexts as a driver of the development of services than can enhance the possibility of local development in tourism. The town of Oliva is located on Spain´s south-east Mediterranean coast. It has 11.8 km of sandy beaches, awarded the distinctive Blue Flag (European Directive 2006/7/EC) that acknowledges the pure quality of the sea, accessibility and respect for the environment, granted by the Foundation for Environmental Quality of the European Union (2014), which, along with its proportion of coastline, makes it one of the top tourist beach destinations in Spain.

We use concept mapping and cluster analysis to identify an intelligent use of resources to improve the competitiveness of tourism businesses, based on previous studies in which a tourist city is identified as a tourist cluster, such as Benidorm (Miret-Pastor and Segarra-Oña 2011), or the case study on tourism in the region of Valencia (Miret-Pastor et al. 2009). The concept mapping approach aims to combine the resources available with the capabilities of stakeholders to develop and to improve a tourist town for it to become sustainable (Bruntland 1987), where additional resources are provided by optimal tourism management for it to finally be considered a tourism cluster with its consequent economic importance.

We can define concept mapping as a graphical representation that combines qualitative and quantitative information, which reflects the result of group thinking, highlighting clusters of ideas by their similarity or closeness and their relevant importance (Burke et al. 2005). Concept mapping (Trochim and Linton 1986) structures the conceptualization process in such a way that the ideas expressed in group dynamics end up on a perceptual map, which allows us to see how the ideas relate to one another and, optionally, establish which ideas are the most important, relevant, or appropriate. Trochim (1989) later refines the definition and confers greater prominence to the graphical representation of a groupthink.

Following Trochim (1989), the six steps shown in Fig. 1 form the basis of concept mapping.

The first contacts were made at the highest level of local authority with a view to obtaining authorization, agree on the methodology to be used, and verify the local authority’s commitment with the content and objective pursued, bearing in mind its experience and interest in determining how administration can influence tourism and optimize resources. At the start of 2012, we arranged a meeting with fourteen professionals responsible for municipal management, each with a minimum of seven years of experience in a variety of the most important areas, chosen either by a random criterion, or that of professionalism.

In the present case, the statistical study was not carried out for actual use, but to identify instead which public services could be optimized. This decision was made to question professionals by combining both quantitative and qualitative data in order to follow the method of concept mapping (Trochim 1989).

The task agreed by the researchers was to make a list of innovations whereby information technology can be used to improve a service at the Town Council, or create a new one.

The procedure was explained at length to those who would form a part of a brainstorming session to improve Public Administration services. Several cards were handed out to each participant to write a single idea per card, and his/her name was indicated on each one. Participants were also told that they should express their ideas clearly and concisely, without considering whether they would be put into effect or not. During this process, excessive amounts of information were not provided so as not to skew valid ideas or influence thought processes. In accordance with procedures described in previous studies (Bigné et al. 2002), a facilitator was chosen from the researchers in the prior preparation and idea-generation stages.

Brainstorming alternatives are suggested in the experiments by Nabitz et al. (2007), focusing on the object of the analysis, and by Simpson (1994), who worked remotely with a focus group and questionnaires. Other studies on concept mapping were also analyzed, such as Gil-Pechuán et al. (2014), Miranda-Gumucio et al. (2013), Rosas and Camphausen (2007), Rosas (2005), Toral et al. (2006), or Trochim and Linton (1986).

Next the participants were asked to group together the ideas that resulted from the brainstorming. The only limitations on this process were that not all the ideas should be listed in the same group, and to ensure that each idea was placed only in a single group.

When the stipulated time for generating ideas had finished, all the cards were collected, and any duplications and invalid cards were eliminated. In some cases, it was necessary to ask the author about an idea to better clarify exactly what he or she wished to express. This was why each card bore a name. As a result, an agreed list was prepared of 20 ideas or items (see Table 1).

Subsequently, a table was handed to each participant individually, in which he/she rated each idea separately on the Likert Scale from 1 to 5. After completing this task, and cards had been collected, each participant was given as many cards as expressed ideas; that is, 20 cards to each participant.

Participants were asked to group the cards based on their similarity or proximity, without providing any indication whatsoever as to how many groups, whether they were large or small, should be formed. Once again they were told to work individually, and then each card was numbered.

The facilitator collected the cards from each participant and thanked them for their time. The researchers, now no longer with the study group, created the first table by adding up all the individual Likert score cards and dividing the sum by the number of participants to obtain a table with the total weighted scores per item. Subsequently, matrix tables per group of ideas and per individual, along binary and symmetric lines, were produced in which 0 indicated that two ideas were unrelated, and 1 indicate that they were related.

After preparing as many tables as participants, the second table was created, which was calculated by the sum of the squared and binary symmetrical matrices so that the diagonal corresponded to the number of participants (14).

In this case, we called 40 experts in business management from the tourist sector in May 2013 to perform the same methodology previously used with the municipal management experts, whose scope of activity coincided with the final objective. The objective was to compare the results of the same situation, considered from two points of view, in order to develop a collaborative research model, together with the current study on collaboration between public and private sectors in Spain (Torres and Pina 2001), and on the tourist sector in particular (Zapata and Hall 2012). The idea was to accomplish a PPP that would allow the public sector to benefit from the commercial dynamism that could increase finances, especially when budgets are currently restricted. It could enhance innovation and efficiency by introducing investors from the private sector, who could contribute with their own capital, skills, and experience (Menon and Manoj 2014). Forty business experts convened, and ranged from hotel managers to managers of sports facilities and tourist services.

The participants who would form part of the brainstorming session had the same procedure as that employed in the first phase explained to them. The aim was to improve Public Administration services from the demand perspective in order to be more competitive, which resulted in a list of 20 suggestions (see Table 3).

The literature indicates that competitiveness is not generated by a single sector alone, rather by the complementarity between different local and private sector services (Nicholson and Orr 2016). Our contribution to this was to simultaneously conduct two agreed pilot schemes in parallel in a highly competitive municipality of the tourist sector.

As the two experiments demonstrated, the two clusters with the closest relationship were cluster 2 (municipal management experts) and B (business management experts in the tourist sector), both identified as Technologies to improve external municipal management: processing and attention. Table 5 shows that cluster B was slightly larger, with 11 items out of 25 possible ones, while cluster 2 had 9 items out of 20 possible ones. They also occupied the same two quadrants in conceptual mapping and had a similar cluster weight of 2 (3.82) and B (3.75).

In terms of content, we found that the objective for both parties was to improve the communication between local administrations and their client: the public. Both agreed on the objective of dealing with all paperwork over the Internet to speed up the processing of documentation on formal applications and issuing licenses because, for example, granting environmental licenses can currently take years.

Cluster C (Tourism management technologies) is entirely based on tourism, and is the most highly evaluated of them all (4.13). However, it is noteworthy that there is no connection with any of the clusters inside local government. Our only interpretation of this is that municipal management experts do not believe that the promotion and internal management of tourism businesses forms part of their competence.

Cluster 1 (Technologies to improve internal municipal management: personnel management and processes) is a compendium of the technological tools needed to successfully fulfill objectives. What is evident in this cluster is the need for an adequate geographical information system to facilitate administrators’ work, which ranges from cadastral identification to possibly granting building permits, by simply clicking on an interactive map. A well-organized, internal interdepartmental network is also required to respond quickly and promptly to diverse and multiple registered inputs.

Finally, in cluster A (Technology online geo-services), similar items to some to those of the content in the following clusters were found: 1 (Technologies to improve internal municipal management: Personnel management and processes) and 2 (Technologies to improve external municipal management: processing and attention). This is because item 1 on the municipal website also appears in cluster 1. Then there are item 11, and items 6 and 7 based on webcams, which appear as item 19 in cluster 2. Finally, items 8 and 25, based on text messages and QR codes, are also found in item 20 of cluster 2. In this case, we consider this cluster to be the result of attaining clusters 1 and 2 as it did not function without the proper and prior infrastructure. This indicates that municipal services have a direct bearing on the tourism management in the municipality.

In order to develop competitive advantages, the first approach in Fig. 4 shows a collaboration model between the local government and entrepreneurs in the tourist sector, where all the influential agents are indicated. Figure 4 was produced according to Table 5 in order to bridge the gap created in the collaboration between the Public Administrations and the businesspeople from the tourist sector (PPP). The obtained results from the mapping concepts offered in Figs. 2 and 3 are represented in such a way that by analyzing what both agents demand, we can see what they coincide into propose a collaborative model.

Given the results obtained from the cluster analysis, found in studies on innovation strategies (Henao-Betancur et al. 2013), and specifically on business strategies in the tourist sector (Aziri and Nedelea 2013), a decision was made that the results obtained in Tables 1 and 3 should be re-analyzed and adapted to innovation via the Ansoff product market matrix, as shown in Table 6. Here we can see that the first quadrant is composed of the existing know-how, the second quadrant contains the ICT innovations proposed by business management experts, the third quadrant shows the ICT innovations proposed by municipal management experts, while the fourth and final quadrant consists of the matches found in the innovations proposed by both groups of experts.

The challenge was to now discern which agents should be involved, and to what extent, in each quadrant. For the second quadrant, they must necessarily result from a comprehensive collaboration between business and public Administration, with defined objectives and responsibilities, a joint budget reserve or contingency fund, and an implementation schedule. Reluctance to change appears as a major barrier to overcome, as far as improvements are concerned, in both public sector workers who offer innovative services and entrepreneurs who work for themselves with these new services. One of the challenges facing public administration is to encourage society to accept them.

The proposed innovations in the third quadrant need to begin with the local government’s willingness, which must also enjoy a large enough majority to be able to carry out new initiatives in services. Secondly, there must be sufficient budget reserve and the implementation schedule must be realistic. Finally, as indicated in the second quadrant, the actual implementation of improvements must overcome the reluctance of government workers to change, and of society to accept them.

In the fourth quadrant, the proposed innovations are shown, which coincide in both parties, thus the circumstances described in the second and third quadrants must merge and, close collaboration between the government and business will be imperative.

In each quadrant, all agents will be involved in a different way and to different extents based on the following four factors: speed and flexibility, understood as documentary diligence and promptness; profits made, referring to the economic profit from the private sector point of view, and social benefits that affect citizens positively from the public administrations perspective; the economic investment required to implement innovation; and finally, reluctance to change that can arise in both public sector workers and the general public, as shown in Table 7. These factors indicate the weighted estimation for each innovation that corresponds to the government, and to all entrepreneurs collectively in the tourist sector. This table offers the weighting obtained on historical statistical data taken from available analyses and reports from local government.

By analyzing the previous table, and in the order that innovations were proposed, we identified those innovations suggested by the tourism operator group that would speed up communication with the administration, and be beneficial for the private business sector. The values for these innovations ranged from 0.24 to 0.76 for the administration’s case of tourism promotion where, following the same example, no significant difference (0.41–0.59) in profits was observed. With regard to the economic investment required for the purposes of implementation, it would be split, but with the lion´s share borne by the administration given the creation of an open municipal tourist social network, with 0.77–0.23 in the most extreme case. Reluctance to change was widely distributed with maximum values ranging from 0.42 to 0.58 for introducing an internal network to exploit synergies.

The singular innovations proposed by the Public Administrations would have a notable effect by speeding up internal processes, where they obtained a marked advantage with values of up to 0.97–0.03. Conversely, they would also require nearly all the available investment, as evidenced by the dichotomy of the ones and zeros in the table. However, profits would also fall mainly to Public Administrations, with special reference made to creating an internal interdepartmental network that would facilitate information searches, with values of 0.82–0.18, and teleworking. Conversely, reluctance to change obtained the highest percentage, with values reaching 0.86–0.14, for the implementation of a geographic information system. This highlights the strong inertia to overcome making changes in the internal processes of a large organization.

Finally, the innovations in which both parties coincide would entail the widespread speeding up of processing, with an evaluation of 0.5 for three of the six proposed innovations: online processing of files, digital certification and electronic signature, and paying taxes online. This stresses the need for improvement and ease of communication demanded by both parties. The profits to be obtained are also distributed between the two, which highlights the obvious discrepancy in investment, and this should show a return on investment for paying taxes online, the municipal website and QR codes. Regarding reluctance to change, the local government would also bear almost all the burden, with values from 0.82 to 0.18 for online processing of records.

Based on the above estimations, we conclude that the public administrations which, in most cases, incur most of the investment made for these innovations, and face the greatest reluctance to change to speed up, would be more efficient and, consequently, create profits to be shared with the private sector of the tourist industry. Thus when analyzing the data in Table 7, we see that the weighting of the four factors for the public administration is as follows: Speed and flexibility 22.4%, Profits 22%, Investment 31.7%, and Reluctance to change 23.9%. The same figures for the private tourist sector are as follows: Speed and flexibility 29.83%, Profits 30.7%, Investment 12.44%, and Reluctance to change 27.03%.

Such is the justification for the collaborative model proposed in Fig. 5, in which both public administration, and the group of all the tourism entrepreneurs, should coordinate to fulfill the agreed innovations. These would consist of applying technology to improve external municipal management in order to optimize the exchange between them, by passing directly from the first to the fourth quadrant in Table 6, in order to gain a competitive advantage, which will lead to a substantial improvement in communication between both parties.

Figure 5 establishes that the most influential factor in the Public Administrations is the need for investment to undertake the agreed innovations, with 31.7% followed by the potential reluctance to change to implement them (23.9%). In contrast, we note that among all the tourism entrepreneurs, the most influential factor for undertaking innovations is the expected economic profits, with 30.7%, followed by speeding up bureaucracy and fluent communication between both parties, with 29.83%. That is, the business community is concerned with promoting tourism to make more profits, and efficiency in dealing with the administration for processing licenses and joint-problem solving. However, the Public Administrations require funding to modernize their filing systems and connectivity, and to train employees to adapt to change, where special emphasis is placed on overcoming the inertia of a large organization with a long-standing organizational methodology.