Human-centric Service Co-Innovation in Hospitality: A practice-based view

Abstract: Innovation is an important determinant for economic survival and growth in the hospitality industry. As a highly human-centric industry, service providers and customers as users join forces to co-innovate. By using their needs, experiences and knowledge as the sources of innovation in a human-centric service innovation approach, the developed outcomes are more relevant to the various stakeholders. However, there is a lack of understanding of the practices that shape these innovations. This study applies a directed content analysis to secondary qualitative data available online to uncover relevant and successful practices. It is found that firms personalise the service offerings to individual customers given their feedback and complaints. These customers also inform the deliberation of service standards. Feedback is further gathered from groups of users to co-innovate new service concepts or develop new ways of service delivery. As such, novel services are made fit with other service offerings and/or the lives for the targeted customers. Contributions from the collective of users are collected in- person, through surveys or online. The application of artificial intelligence to evaluate the feedback data is highlighted. Moreover, hospitality firms encourage customers to raise their voices for societal benefit, reflected through consumer behaviour trends and the promotion of sustainability, or the benefit of an internal community of stakeholders. Lastly, research and development in laboratories, testbeds or incubator spaces are found to play a critical role in hospitality innovation strategies.