Innovation in the tourism sector in greater Poland

Innovation in the tourism sector is increasingly becoming a source of competitive advantage. The factors which have most influenced this process include: advances in technology, increasingly demanding consumers, the limited life-span of a tourism product and growing competition. The paper presents the results of research into innovative solutions applied by tourism enterprises based in the Greater Poland market, taking into account above all the nature of the service industry. The most important aspects were deemed to be: innovative tourism products on offer, innovative services in the tourism sector, business and logistics management as well as relations between particular stakeholders. The research results also indicated that as the tourism industry is service-oriented and therefore immaterial in nature, no specialised sectors for innovative enterprise which would also be responsible for the introduction of new business solutions exist. This role has clearly been assigned to the employer and, depending on the degree of enterprise development and commitment to contact with interested parties, lower levels in the tourism industr