A new conceptual model for the hotel industry: sustainability vs open innovation

Scattered hotel is born as a solution to develop tourism in an innovative way and can be considered a project of valorization of a territory in a sustainable view, even if literature doesn’t provide a measurement of its level of sustainability. At the same time, scattered hotel is designed to offer an authentic experience of the “Italian life style” and it has been rewarded by UNDP (United Nations Development Program) for its innovation. While innovation in the hotel industry has been largely debated in literature, the emerging topic of Open Innovation is unexplored in SMEs operating in hotel industry. This paper aims at (1) providing a measure for both the level of sustainability and the level of Open Innovation in scattered hotels (2) creating a matrix SHSI-SHOI able to map scattered hotels on the base of these dimensions in order to draw development strategies. Drivers of SHSI (Scattered Hotel Sustainability Index) and SHOI (Scattered Hotel Open innovation Index) are chosen by means of literature. The two indices are got throughout an adaptation of the SERVPERF questionnaire. Paper results in a mapping of scattered hotels that allows tourist operators to draw paths of development.