ANALYZING MANAGERS’ PERCEPTION OF CREATIVITY IN TOURISM

The past decades brought new meanings to creativity as the decline of mass tourism created impetus for the emergence of creative behavior as a major source of competitive advantage in the tourism industry. This led, in turn, to the development of a new type of tourism – creative tourism – which translates into new products and services, new collaboration and partnership structures, new forms of organization and ultimately into new experiences for consumers of tourism services. However, there is still no consensus on how creativity manifests itself in tourism and how it can be encouraged in order to generate value-added for the customers. To this aim, a qualitative research was carried out, based on a structured interview applied to managers of tourism operators from various segments of the tourism value chain. Results reveal the differences in approach to encourage creativity among employees, bring value-added to the customers through creative services, and build a culture based on creative behavior and practices