Putting Social Innovation into Action: The Case of the Ecotourism at the Dominican Republic

Marival Segarra-Oña () and Angel Peiró-Signes
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Marival Segarra-Oña: Polytechnic University of Valencia
Angel Peiró-Signes: Polytechnic University of Valencia

A chapter in Tourism, Culture and Heritage in a Smart Economy, 2017, pp 385-394 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Social innovation, defined as a new and useful solution to a problem or a social need that the created value or benefits that are mainly addressed to society, instead that to a particular business or group of people, is arising as one of the most powerful tools to drive change. Its ability to engage with the needs of society is one of its key characteristics. On the other hand, environmental concern has to be considered nowadays in every aspect of the development on new products or services, as it has been proved to be a differentiating aspect and, therefore, to generate competitive advantages as well as a society’s demand to achieve a sustainable growing. Considering these, our objective is to analyze, study and shape the process of identifying needs, generating ideas and innovation assessment that integrates social, business and sustainability goals that society demands. We studied the ecotourism sector in a country that is a first level objective regarding International Cooperation, The Dominican Republic. To do so, we follow an innovative methodology, the living-lab, that was first tested at the MIT, consisting in a research methodology for detecting and testing needs in real life environments, therefore, focusing on the reality and with a high degree of user involvement as they are included in the value creation process. As a result, we explain the implementation of the research project, difficulties, observed benefits and main findings.

Keywords: Social innovation; Ecotourism; Living labs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L83 O31 O35 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-47732-9_25

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