Does Tourism Matter to National Innovation Capability?

ABSTRACT Tourism is not frequently recognized in national innovation policies, but important innovations have occurred in tourism throughout history. Many countries compete to increase both inbound tourism and national innovation capability. However, tourism policies and innovation policies rarely intersect. Taking a configurational approach and using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, this article aims to identify combinations of conditions leading to national innovation capability that might include tourism as a contributing condition. The findings show that tourism may have a complementary role in building technology innovation. This builds the case for the integration of tourism in national innovation policies, because tourism interacts with several other areas, leveraging technological innovation. This argument might contribute to change the way tourism is seen by policy-makers and hopefully inform future innovation policy design. Furthermore, it implies that the assessment of tourism innovation might consider potential synergistic effects.