Digital innovations in tourism: the perceptions of stakeholders

Purpose This study aims to examine the main aspects of innovation development regarding digital tools used in the tourism industry in a local area. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach and the descriptive analysis technique was employed to analyse completed semi-structured expert survey questionnaires created in Google Forms. The aim is to examine the opportunities and potential for digital innovation in tourism in the Baltic region. Specialists representing tourism and hotel businesses, the guide profession as well as the disciplines of business and economics were selected as experts. Findings The experts indicated that digital marketing was very important for tourism development, and it is still considered a new field of science with huge potential. The research results showed that when introducing/developing digital innovations in a local area, tourism companies were faced with low-quality or no data analytics at all. In addition, long-term maintenance of digital tools was not considered, and the investment outweighed the benefits of implementing the technologies. Originality/value The study contributes to the development of digital innovation and the identification of problems in a local area.