Innovative tourism products in Greek destinations and their influence into tourism stream



CHAPTER 3. EMPYRICAL RESULTS OF RESEARCH

3.1 Results of analysis that were collected from several information into an Excel sheet

For taking several results in this research dissertation, there were considered 110 innovative products in several Greek destinations. Main criteria of choosing those innovations, as I already mention, were first of all the last 5 years (2014-2018) and the Awards that the innovative products took. Classification of them arouse from theoretical literature review and from other concrete reasons:

Table 5 Classification of innovative products

	Technological
1	A mobile application that promotes or inform about a destination or event
2	Search engine about transport, accommodation, rent a car and others
3	Robots or any technological innovation from different sphere that can be used into travel section
4	A brand new technological innovation inside a hotel, hostel or any tourism accommodation
5	Virtual excursion or any other technological devise in a cultural place (museum, theatre, cinema, attraction)
	Organizational
1	Innovative approach to organization of a tourism business company
2	Innovative advertising and marketing processes of an organization
3	Promotion tools within an organization
4	Organizing employees with an innovative method in travel sector
5	Involve employees to create an idea or make an innovation
	Social
1	Helping via this innovation the society
2	Helping the environment (green and eco tourism products)
3	Accessible tourism (access to all travelers as much as possible)
4	Helping specific groups of people (children, elderly) to understand, think, feel something via those innovations

As it was told already, there were built several graphics in an Excel sheet. So as a result, from 110 cases the graphic of classification shows the number and percentage:

Graphic 1 Classification of cases

From this graphic it is coming up that technological innovations are the most in Greece (50% of the cases given). Almost 1/3 organizational innovations are and less innovations (from the cases) are the social ones. As it was already mentioned in chapter 1 of the research, main planning of Ministry of Tourism in Greece about innovative products, concerns technological innovations in all over the Greece. As a result, from Governmental organs of Greek Republic, technological innovations are more promoted, so it is easily explained why the most awarded innovative cases of last five years are in the technological classification.

As far as concerns location of innovative products there are two sub-categories in which I separate the case. One is the location where they were created. The second is where the innovative products are working. For example an application can work all over Greece. In the first sub-category I create a map, where is Greece and there I put several pins, which show where, the innovative products where created:



Map 1 Location of creation of the products

The yellow pins represent the technological innovations, the red are the social and the green color represents the organizational innovative products. As we can see, most of innovative products were created in Athens. It is also obvious that many innovative products that are working all over Greece were been created in Thessaloniki. There is a hypothesis that this is because Thessaloniki has the only college in which people can learn everything about potential ideas that could be innovations in the future. This college calls Alexander College of innovation.

The second sub-category of location is about where the innovative products are working. The graph that was created for those 110 cases looks like that:



Graphic 2 Location of where the products are working

In the graph, there are represented several places in which the innovative products are working. All over Greece “place” means that the innovative product works or gives its services all over Greece. As an example the search engine viva.gr works in every place in Greece without any problem. Another category is islands which mean that the innovation is in an island or it gives its services in this island. Another category is mountains in which innovations promote different mountain territories. Seaside category is about innovations that work for Ionian Sea, Aegean Sea or all over Greek beaches. As an example Innoxenia innovation is an application which works in coast of Ionian Sea while Incrediblue is about renting a yacht all over the Greek sea. Cities in the north of Greece, are mainly considered the cities in region of Macedonia and Thrace (Thessaloniki, Khalkidhiki etch). And last but not least, cities in south of Greece, which mainly meant the cities in Peloponnese region (Kalamata, Sparta etch).

Next informative data that were taken were about creation of the innovative product. This mainly relates to the innovations that become into force or were created from Government (or from cooperation of European Union and Greek Government), Region, Local (city or island) and/or Individual (a person created having an idea and some funds). Here I need to stress that if an individual has the idea and put some funds doesn't mean that the entire funds is his/hers but in near future when the innovative product starts to be famous it can given funds from any other sector. Governmental means that government first of all give the permission for creation of this innovation, it is also comes to force after the approval of the government. So as an example, Innoxenia and Inn Med Tour became operative through the approval of European Union and Greek Government.

Regional are innovations that came into force through regional committee, official territorial tourism organizations and mainly promote a whole territory and not a specific city. Main examples is Sense Zagori Application which been created in whole territory of Zagorochoria and was being approved through Municipality of the area and Leave like Local which is also came into force through committee of Pelion region.

Local is mainly an innovation which is created in a city or an island and works just for a city and the municipality of a city gave the approval for the creation. As an example can be any innovative product inside a museum of Athens and the funds for the innovation came from the municipality of the city.

Individual is an innovation that created by an individual and it was his/hers idea. As an example, jewelry museum was a personal collection of a woman in Athens and she decided to create this innovative museum which exist just one in Greece and 4 all over the world. The permission for the creation and the whole idea was hers. However, after being famous and took the award the innovative museum start to been helped in terms of finance resources, mainly, from other sectors, too.



Graphic 3 Creation of the product

As we can see, mainly, ideas for innovative products come from people which are in one or another way want to help tourism and economy of their country, region or city. In other hand, the idea of making concrete innovative products, when it comes from a governmental, this means that is something which truly was very carefully discussed after actual creation.

Another informative data that were been collected, where about the field that the innovative product exist. Some of the main fields are applications, some museums in which you can have either an innovative virtual exhibition (which considers as an innovative) either a social service that it gives to special group of people. Other fields in which we have innovative products are hotels (either the whole hotel either a service or a product within it). Furthermore, it can be a tour operator which is either an organization that gives services in tours (Mouzenidis travel) or an individual person that gives tour services (Dimitra Kokkevi-Fotiou). I also found some online platforms and internet communities which is a different field of innovation:



Graphic 4 Field in which the product exists

As we can see, applications are the most together with the online platforms. Smaller categories constituted from cultural spaces, search engines and restaurants.

Nowadays, it becomes more and more apparent that social networks play a vital role in tourism sector. As a result, it also plays a role for the innovations inside the tourism industry. The social network that is mostly used all over the World is Facebook. So I collected the quantity of users on Facebook pages of all the innovative products that I have to see how popular they are among the people.

I separated the numbers into 4 categories which are Low, Medium, high and very high. In low category are the Facebook pages which have less than 100 users. This means, either that the innovation is not that popular or that innovation is very new. As an example, Innoxenia is not even come into force (the application will come into force on June of 2019), as a result is normal that it doesn't have many members yet.

Medium is when the members are from 100 till 9.000. High category is when the members of a Facebook page are from 10.000 to 50.000. Very high is from 50.001 and more:



Graphic 5 Users пn Facebook

Furthermore, there were analyzed the number of reviews on Google and the rating that the reviews gave:

Graphic 6 Reviews in Google for the products

About categorization in this graph there is the one where reviews are not existed. This means that either the innovative products are very new so they don't have even reviewed by Google yet, either they are not that popular. The low category is where the reviews are less than 100. The medium category is where the reviews are less than 300. High category is this one that has less than 1000 and very high is this one that has more than 1000.

People that rate the innovative products on Google represented in the next graph:

Graphic 7 Rating in Google for the products

The categories are three: the not existed reviews or not yet existed. Those innovations are mainly those, as I already say, which doesn't came into force (Innoxenia, Inn Med Tour) or those which the company doesn't put into Facebook page a reviewing service (Captainwice).

Medium rating is from 2.9 to 3.9 and high rating is from 4 to 5. The quantity of reviews generally, plays a vital role because if the rating is 5 out 5, while it is a good rating probably it doesn't plays the same role if the reviews are just four. So rating and number of reviews are two graphs which interacts one to other.

3.2 Interest over time and tendency through Google trends

I made a Google Trends analysis through all my cases (110 innovative products). I firstly check special keywords through Similar Web and through Word Stream. As a result, I checked concrete collocations so Google trends will give me exact results for my innovations. The period of time is 5 years (like one of my criteria to choose those innovations). Moreover, I put the worldwide category so I could check the interest and tendency of the innovative products all over the world.

The two main things, which I am checking are interest over time to an innovative product and tendency of the graph that created.

As far as related with interest it can be low, medium, high and very high. Some of the innovative products couldn't give any graph. In this case there is a sub-category of non-existed graphs.

So as a result, the first graphic about interest is represented here:

Graphic 8 Interest over time for innovations

So as we can see, 8 innovations couldn't give any graphic. This means even that they are many new (for example Innoxenia or InnoMed). Other possible reason is that the interest is so low that Google trends can't give any graphic.

24% of graphics gives low interest which means that graphics have less than 30 of 100 numerical in the Google trends analysis. Medium interest has graphics that shows interest from 30 to 70. High interest shows graphics which have more than 70 and very high interest means that the graphic has more than 90/100.

Tendency shows if in the graphic the interest increases over the last five years or decreases through these 5 years. So there is the increasing tendency, decreasing tendency, stable (when the tendency almost doesn't change through years) and sharp tendency when the tendency sharply increase or decrease for a small period of time (without knowing the exact reasons why this happens). Lastly, an innovation that doesn't show any graphic in Google Trends it means, as it is obvious that we can't say something about the tendency:

Graphic 9 Tendency of the interest in the last 5 years for the products

As we can see, half of the innovations increase their tendency through the last five years. 1/3 has a stable tendency without changing through the time. 12% have a sharp tendency for a small period of time and only 6% have decreasing tendency.

Interest over time and tendency of the interest through time can give a correlative relationship between the two terms. As a result I created a matrix between these two variables. The horizontal line shows the interest and the vertical line shows the tendency. The arrows show the direction of high and low interest and tendency, respectively:



Image 1 Relationship between interest and tendency

As we can see, in the square with 46 Innovations, there are innovative products which have both high interest and tendency. In the next square with 23 innovations we have high interest but low tendency. In the box which is diagonal, there is low interest but high tendency and in the white box with 13 innovations there is both low interest and tendency.

	Interest	Tendency
46 Innovations	+	+
23 Innovations	+	-
20 Innovations	-	+
13 Innovations	-	-

Same characteristics that those innovations have:

Some Examples

Mykonos Reserve innovations and its Graphics:



From this graph we can see, firstly, that in summer months the application for Mykonos Island increases the interest of the people. Moreover, the tendency is increasing from 2014 till today. Furthermore, the interest on average, approximately, is more than 60/100.

Hopeware application and its graph:

In this graph we can see that the tendency is stable with a small increase over the years. As far as concerned the interest, as we can see it never falls less than 50.

Vodafone explore Greece and its graph:

In this Graph we can see that the interest is high (more than 50 in 5 years) while the tendency is decreasing over the last 5 years.

Blueground application and its graph:

In this graph, we can observe an increasing tendency, especially in 2018 year, which sharply increases. However, the interest is very small, except the last year. We can deduce that this happens because Blueground application took an award on 2018 as one of the innovative products that could help visitors.

3.3 Analyzing several sites

As it was already mentioned in chapter 2, it was been analyzed 50 sites. From hem, some were from European Union, some from Government, some Regional and official sites of Tour Operators.

I check everything about innovation and innovative products through all of these sites. Tourism sector in Greece has many official sites which are organs for tourism promotion. The main is the official site of Ministry of Tourism in Greece, the SETE (Greek tourism confederation), the site Visit Greece, Discover Greece and plenty others. Some governmental sites that also help us to analyze Greece's innovations are enterprise Europe, Hellenic association of innovative start ups, organization about innovation in Greece and Hellenic entrepreneurs. I also analyze the site of statistics in Greece.

The first thing which I made through all this text that I collect was semantic analysis and I create a Word Cloud:



Image 2 Word cloud

As we can see from the image, it is obvious that from all the text, main words are tourism, innovation, promotion and business.

The second, and one of the most important data which were been collect from sites, were about the financial resources that is given in Greek regions and the finances that are given separately from European Union, Ministry of Tourism in Greece and Ministry of Economy and Development for innovative products:

Graphic 10 Finance resources given for innovation

The map of several regions in Greece with its financial recourses for innovative products:

Map 2 Financial resources by regions into Greek map

In the map we can see with red color Macedonia region, with yellow Thessaloniki, with brown Athens, with green Epirus region, with purple Thessaly, with blue Peloponnese, with pink Ionian Islands, with light blue Cyclades islands, with light green Dodecanese islands, with black North Aegean islands and with orange Crete.

Moreover, there is a graphic with the financial resources given by region.

Graphic 11 Financial Resources given from regions to several innovations

As we can see, Athens has the biggest amount of financial resources for creating innovative products. Less financial resources, has Thessaly, which is understandable, because the geographical component (region) of Thessaly has 5 regional units which are not that touristic among summer (except Magnesia and Sporades islands). innovation tourism travel

After that, several informative data were coded and analyzed through several graphs. First of all, it was checked if in all of these sites there is promotion or not of tourism innovation in general, without taking into account concrete cases:

Graphic 12 Promotion of innovation

From those sites which were promoted tourism innovation the percentage of Governmental, regional or tour operators is shown in the next graph:

Graphic 13 Promotion in quantity of sites

As we can see, all the governmental sites promote tourism innovation. In official sites of Greek regions the 2/3 promote innovation and approximately the 1/5 of tour operators that I were analyzed, promotes innovations. From this result it is obvious that tour operators in Greece don't promote innovation that much.

Taking into account the 110 cases and the sites which were been analyzed, I create two different graphs. The first is about which kind of sites are promoted each innovative case:

Graphic 13 Sites that promote cases

The categories are 1) if the case is promoted from Government of Greece, 2) if it is promoted from Region or 3) a tour operator. The fourth sub-category is about a case that 4) is promoted in more than one kind of site. Official sites of European Union promotes many innovative cases, however there is no case that is promoted just from an EU site so they were counted in sub-category of more than one site.

The other graphic is about financial resources that were given for the innovative cases:



Graphic 14 Financial resources from which sector were taken

European Union gave finance support to the 6% of the cases while Greek government gave financial support to the most of them.

3.4 Regression analysis

There were examined three different relationships through regression method. The first was about influence of finance resources that are given for the innovative products (dependent variable) to tourism stream of 2014 and tourism stream of 2018 (independent variables). I need to specify that the finance recourses that are given for innovative products are per region. So, as a result it was examined with tourism flow of whole region. The result is that:

Table 6 Regression 1

Regression statistics
Multiple R	0,979419783
R-squared	0,959263111
Standardized R-squared	0,958501674
Standardized error	2874122,281
Observation	110



So as a result, it is safe to say that 95 percent is the chance in that the tourism flow can increase because of the financial resources that are given for innovations. The flow from 2018 is directly related to the amount of investment in innovation to tourism flow of 2018. This difference can be explained 96% of the result.

From this regression it was also analyzed the percentage of growth in last 5 years (2014-2018). The percentage of growth by region is in represented in the next table:

Percentage of growth

Table 7

	Regions	Percentage of growth in the last 5 years
1	Thrace	127%
2	Macedonia	75%
3	Epirus	56%
4	Thessaly	92%
5	Peloponnese	10%
6	Thessaloniki	83%
7	Athens	68%
8	Ionian islands	43%
9	Islands of Northern Aegean	150%
10	Cyclades	70%
11	Dodecanese	23%
12	Crete	30%
13	All Greece	51%

The second regression was about the relationship of tourism stream of 2018 (independent variable) with the level of innovativeness (dependent variable) of the products. First of all I need to specify that the tourism stream of 2018 is per place that the innovative product works. So as an example innovative product that works in Mykonos is examined by tourism Stream of Mykonos Island in 2018. As far as concerns the level of innovativeness of products, they were been measured by 7 concrete criteria. The criteria were been choose on basis of theory and discussion with my thesis supervisor. Those criteria are about how unique is the product among the others in Greece. How high or low is the interest in the product (results from Google trends), popularity (taken from Google rating, reviews and Facebook pages), level of technological or social or organizational aspect in the products, how travel-friendly is the product for international visitors of the country, the impact that a product have for stakeholders (high or low) and lastly how high or low is the impact to country's seasonality. The scale was from 1 to 5. There were been estimating the 7 criteria. After this, it was taken the average number and compared with tourism flow of every lace that the case is working.

Results of the second regression:

Regression mode fits good for data as F (1,109)=23,839, p < 0,01

Coefficientsa
Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.	95,0% Confidence Intervalfor B
	B	Std. Error	Beta			Lower Bound	Upper Bound
1	(Constant)	-29313323,467	9249528,547		-3,169	,002	-47647493,687	-10979153,248
	Mean	13412150,481	2746964,911	,425	4,883	,000	7967189,475	18857111,487
a. Dependent Variable: tourism stream

Level of innovation has a positive and significant influence on tourist stream (в= 0.425, p < 0.01). In every increasing of level of innovativeness by one point (in scale of 5), is accompanied an increase of tourism flow by 425.000 thousand tourists.

The dependent variable (tourism stream) statistically explains 20% of sample of independent variable (level of innovativeness).



3.5 Benchmarking

First of all, it is specified, which the potential competitors of Greece are and which the counties that mostly travel to Greece are. So, according to Hellenic Statistical Authority and to Greek Tourism Confederation, in Greece the tourists are mostly from Germany, France (Euro Zone), Great Britain and Russian Federation

Table 8 Numbers of tourists by country

2018	Countries of ЕU	Euro Zone		Countries not in Euro Zone		Other countries
			France	Germany		United Kingdom		Russia	TOTAL
January	371	164	8	62	207	35	233	2	603
February	275	134	11	47	141	25	209	10	484
March	425	226	20	88	198	42	283	4	708
April	728	384	61	141	345	82	379	14	1.107
May	1.917	1.171	173	551	746	297	533	24	2.450
June	3.010	1.425	186	568	1.584	578	1.094	99	4.104
July	3.857	2.011	297	677	1.846	497	1.683	125	5.539
August	4.416	2.526	354	773	1.890	529	1.677	97	6.093
September	3.633	1.799	218	740	1.834	528	1.236	75	4.869
October	1.980	1.227	157	612	753	253	742	45	2.722
November	467	231	26	85	236	44	319	9	786
December	319	138	13	38	181	34	338	17	657
TOTAL	21.398	11.436	1.524	4.381	9.961	2.943	8.725	520	30.123

*The arrivals are in thousands

Potential competitors for Greece, in tourism are mostly Mediterranean countries that also have tourists, more or less, from the same countries. So as an example French people prefer Greece, Spain, Italy and Croatia for their summer vacation. German people also prefer to have vacations either in Greece, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Turkey or France. Tourists from United Kingdom prefer for their vacations also Greece, Spain, Turkey, Croatia and Montenegro. Russian people prefer Greece, Turkey, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Croatia and Egypt.

That means that best practices could be taken from countries like Spain, Croatia, Turkey or even other countries outside of Europe which are more economically developed and they have much more financial opportunities or well-developed educational background for creating more innovations than other countries.

Technological innovation

In Greece, as we already prove, technological innovations are way more popular that the other two classifications.

As far as concerned Spain one of the most touristic cities is definitely Barcelona. Barcelona has many technological innovations for promoting the territory, inform the visitors about what is happening around and finding places through GPS which is included inside the app:

E-Dreams

E-Dreams, is probably one of the most popular and huge startup success companies in Spain. It was founded in Barcelona at 1998 as a flight search engine but quickly developed into a crucial player on the international digital travel industry. Truly, in 2014 it was nominated as the most innovative flight engine in Spain. In 2014 it was also grew in terms of its financial support and reached more than 10 billion euro. However, after this success, its share prices decrease for some months, but now the firm seems to be back on right track again. Today, the company is first of all an online travel agency offering transportation, accommodation, tourism packages, car rentals and travel insurance. More importantly, at the beginning of this year the company launched a new online platform which provided budget travel packages for everyone. On 2015 British Travel Awards gave an award to the company as the "Best Innovative Flight Booking Website", an award which the company took for on 2016 as well.

TravelPerk

TravelPerk is one of the main technology start-ups in Spain's business industry. It developed a brand-new travel booking platform. The main difference is the automated travel policies and approvals that make enforcing business travel a thing of the past. The firm was launched in 2016. TravelPerk has already developed a lot and is making big steps in the business travel sector Lоga Seтkвne - Matisвne (2018) Development of corporate travel management system`s content for company x.

In the official site of Travelperk you can measure any time your budget. That mainly means that every traveler has full control of everything and understands thoroughly the amount of money that is going to be spent. Visitor can understand exactly where its travel budget is going and in the same time every individual can make intelligent cutting and changes. Furthermore, in the organization exists a supporting team which works 24 hours per day and 7 days per week. This means that any traveler can contact the team at any time via call, email or platform chat. Moreover, a traveler via this site can consolidate all the travel payments to a single vendor and to a single invoice. That easily means that it is a travel-friendly innovation, easy to use and helpful for any traveler.

Robotized tourism

The Berlin Tourism Fair (ITB) of 2016 will be always something important for the tourism history as the Fair which received Chihira Kanae, a robot made by the Japanese company Toshiba. The robot was shown as a potential future congress hostess and hotel concierge.

However, this robot wasn't the only one presented in this Fair. It was also shown from Marriott Hotel in Ghent a robot called Mario. It is currently working in Marriott in Ghent city. The robot has the ability to speak nineteen languages. His popularity has spreads throughout Europe. His skills are very varied and range from reading the restaurant breakfast menu to make the check-in and check-out at the reception of the hotel.

Chichira and Mario open the way for any future trip which is to accompanied by new humanoids that offer to any traveler a personalized service and offers a brand-new and unique experience.



Table 9 Best practices 1

Technological Travel Innovation all over world	Best practices that Greek technological travel innovations can take from others
Edreams	acquired budgetplaces.com
Travelperk	1) financial visibility and control 2) supporting team 24/7 3)pay one vendor and one invoice
Robotized tourism	robot as a congress hostess and hotel concierge

Greek technological innovations are mostly applications that promote a specific territory (Leave like local, Sense Zagori Project) and online travel agencies (viva.gr). Technological innovations, in tourism industry, seem to be the most popular among the other two categories. So as a result, outside of Greece there are many different innovative suggestions. Firstly, online travel agencies make a step forward with giving the opportunity to travelers make their own trip and count the potential budget (edreams, travelperk). Everyone can control the expenses of every trip that he/she plans. Travelperk for example cooperates with all the potential flight companies, hotels, hostels and even Rbnb apartments. Another interesting practice that it is used in companies outside Greece is a supportive team that works 24/7 and every traveler that has any question, problem or anything else, can contact without any doubt the company and ask. Travelperk can also provide the traveler with one invoice for all the expenses that it is made for its travel.

Secondly, an innovative different kind of tourism arouse last years. It is a robotized tourism which is very popular mostly in Japan. It is mainly arouse within the hotel industry. Robots can work as a member of stuff in hotels. An example is Marriot hotel (Ghent, Blegium) in which the existence of a robot helped already a lot because of his knowledge of 19 languages and plenty of other different skills that he has.

Organizational innovations

In terms of organizations, as we already refer, in Greece there is Mouzenidis travel which is mainly works with Russian speaking people and it is considered as innovative because of its organizational tools about promotion, advertisements, plenty of different departments and services.

Innolitycs

Innolytics is a German company which is an innovative management software tool which provides companies with knowledge in terms of innovative products in tourism industry. Furthermore, the most important aspect is that it can help any company to measure any idea of a potential innovation.

Every company can register online in the official site of the organization and take an advantage of measuring organization's innovative ideas through this unique software. It helps from the very first conversation to a successful implementation of an innovation. Innolytics innovation software supports every company to set up an agile and flexible innovation procedures.

Whirlpool

Whirlpool has developed a unique tactic for innovation. The company is built in making the most of their ideas come from structured ideation sessions, but simultaneously, the company pioneer the idea process to entirely any employee who wants to contribute something. Employees follow specific steps that are as follows: develop an idea, basic business case structure, competition for the development of the idea with other employees, examination and experimentation, and finally, extensive commercialization. In addition to structured idea sessions, Whirlpool has set up technologies that allow any employee to submit an idea.

Adobe Kickstart

In Adobe Kickstart initiative any employee within the company can sign up for a two-day innovation workshop during which they are given a pre-paid credit card. Every employee can examine out an idea and build a pattern. Then employees throw their patterns give them to principals in order to get financial support to take it to the next level. If just one manager will be positive to a prototype then the project starts going to the next level of sponsoring and examining.

Adobe Kickbox delivers an actionable process for discovering new opportunities, validating customer engagement, and evaluating new business potential. It includes tools that help innovators define, refine, validate, and evolve their idea.

Table 10 Best practices 2

Organizational innovations all over the world	Best practices that could be adopted into Greek innovative products
Innolytics	1) Innovation Management Software 2) Measurement
Whirlpool	1) Involve all the employees 2) Learn to them all the process of bringing an idea into reality 3) Allow any employee to submit an idea
Adobe Kickstart	1) two-day innovation workshop 2)every employee builds a prototype 3) if a prototype is good the project starts

Greek travel companies should have an innovation management department. In this they could use the Innolytics software which could help to measure the innovation through many different aspects. Also, many companies can involve employees so they could also participate in a potential innovation. Workshops can be made about how to create an idea and how to make it a reality. This will be helpful so as a result more employees will give their ideas to the company.

Social innovations

In social innovations the One million senses company is a company that deal with autistic families. In Western World is pretty common to have organizations that deal with disabled people. As a result there are already quite experienced organizations in this subject from where we could take best practices.

There is well known European Network Accessible Tourism (ENAT) which is located in Brussels, Belgium. ENAT is a non-profit association for organizations that aim to be primary in the study, promotion and practice of accessible tourism. If any person is an expert or new to this type of tourism - in any case any individual can be really welcome to participate or even work with the company.

By purchasing the knowledge and experience of the network, the members of the company can improve the accessibility of tourist information, transport, infrastructure, design and service for visitors with all kinds of access needs, providing models of excellence in accessible tourism for the whole tourism industry.

Tourism for all

One of the most important companies for people with special needs is located in United Kingdom. It is called Tourism for all. The company released in 1982. It is an independent national charity and its main goal is the accessible tourism and travel for all in all over the World.

Main objectives of the company are to:

· Provide accurate information and with everything need a person with special needs in every kind of travel

· Make tourism and travel industry be open to any kind of disability that potentially may have a traveler

· Work with policy makers to make sure that tourism and travel strategies take full account of relevant needs and are contiguous and organized

The uniqueness of the company is that:

· They are not focused on special needs of the traveler but the travel as something unique and amazing in any case

· They provide tourism packages in all over the World

· They have travel ready packages for all the audience

· They contain all impairments and functions

· All tourism types through the industry is available in this tourism operator

· All political directions and government departments are pretty welcome in this travel agency

Furthermore in this company you can be involved even if you are not connected straightly to a disabled person that wants to travel. Every person can make a membership and help socially, economically or even emotionally the company. Moreover, there is also an opportunity to be a business partner after a request in the official site of the company.

Frontier Travel Camp

This company is located in USA. Frontier Travel Camp was founded on 1996 as a VIP Special Needs Tours operator catering to individuals with almost all the kinds of special needs. However in near future the company became a tourism operator for all kind of social status and every range of salary. It is believed that trips around the World is a great opportunity to experience independence, strengthen traveler's confidence and improve social abilities in a secure and exciting environment. So in this organization, they try to reach this goal, especially to those people that have special needs and in many cases they can't travel easily.

As a result, as it is already known all people, no matter their clinical situation must have the opportunity to travel and explore the World, meet new people from different cultures and make new friends through any trip with which they will become for sure more reach in terms of experiences.

With this company, any person that is over 16 years old can travel alone or with company. Every traveler can have a variety of disabilities such as intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities or other difficulties requiring more supervision and guidance than other traveler. No matter the diagnosis, travelers who are interested in any kind of travel and in any destination can reach the company through its site or offices in the US. Some of the examples of which experiences can be done through the organizations are rafted some of the best rivers in the west, hiked on some of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world, and explored some of the most interesting cities and national parks in US.

These unique experiences not only give to their travelers more unforgettable memories but also they return home empowered by their newfound independence, confident in their ability to make new friends, and proud of their ability to challenge themselves and try new things.

What makes Frontier Travel Camp unique is the bond shared by all the staff, travelers, and their families. This special needs camp is an ever-growing family.

Accessible Spain Travel

In Spain there is a tourism organization called Accessible Spain Travel. This company specialized in accessible holidays in Spain, offering unique independent experiences that can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of the level of personal mobility.

The company provides travel packages to all kind of disabilities either if someone has problems taking stairs or standing long periods of time, suffers from bad knees, uses a walking-assistance apparatus, is recovering from a physical injury or is a permanent wheelchair user. The company tries to create the most exciting and accessible experiences designed specially to every individual or travel groups.

At Accessible Spain Travel they provide everything that a traveler with special needs might need during a trip to Spain: hotel with accessibility for people with special needs, accessible transportation, accessible city tours, adapted vehicle hire, accessible train tickets, accessible restaurants, accessible shopping, accessible daily itineraries, travel insurance, and more. The company have examined and surveyed personally all facilities (accommodation, transportation, day trips) so that the traveler could see that everything will meet the appropriate standards of accessibility and there will not exists any barrier for people with special needs anywhere.

Table 11 Best practices 3

Innovative social tourism organization for disabled people from all over world	Best practices that can take Greece from other social innovative tourism organizations
Tourism 4 All (United Kingdom )	1) make a membership 2) all the audiences (individuals, industry and policy makers) 3) cooperate with national charities
Frontier Travel Camp (Miami, USA)	1) some ideas about Luxury tours for people with special needs 2) broaden the travel places (not only travel through Greece but as an example begin with European destinations 3) strong bond with clients, their families and staff
Accessible Spain Travel (Spain)	all the kind of special needs

The combination of local expertise and the accessibility knowledge provided by Accessible Spain Travel can definitely secure the traveler with high quality of services.

All in all, One million senses and in general other Greek organization for accessible tourism could firstly be moving into a brand of destination all over the world. Secondly, concentrate in other special need groups because this will make bigger the target group. An interesting idea it is also the Luxury tours and to keep a bond with clients and its families after the travel. To make a membership it is also very good way to attract people that are interested even just for help. Potential cooperation with Greek National charities is also a good way for improve the quality of services (via potential economic help that the charities could provide).

Eco and Green hotels

Social innovations are also innovations in terms of Green way of life, eco-culture and it is mainly represented in hotel industry. In Greece there are plenty of those examples in hotel industry like I already mention. As an example we can take Eumelia Organic Farm.

Hi Hotel

One of the best practices that Greece could take ideas from is Hi Hotel in Nice, France. Southern France is one of the potential tourism competitors with Greece and of course it is well organized in many approaches as far as concerns tourism. Hi Hotel is a new hotel with spa located some meters away from the Mediterranean Sea. It is designed by very high qualified designers from all over the World. The hotel is a modern space which is centered in an eco and green philosophy. Every traveler can be assured that everything in the hotel is responsibly sourced, the waste is recycled and the stuff is treated in a green way of thinking. Each room has its own uniqueness so everyone has a choice of what is more important for him/her. The restaurant offers food in-keeping with eco values where everything is organic, fresh and delicious. The spa focuses on wellness treatments and provides a visitor with massages and yoga classes.

Hostal Spa Empuries

Clients of this hotel will definitely be close with nature. The rooms are covered with sheep's wool and its hallway carpets are created from grass. All the rooms use soap dispensers rather than plastic bottles. The hotel's solar-powered light guides the traveler to its natural therapy spa.

Hotel's materials choice is based on values such as sustainability and solidarity. In their rooms, floors, both shower and bath walls have been lined with old hydraulic mosaics. The main objective of hotel wants to preserve the spirit of an old beach hotel but with comfortable updated facilities by using old materials.

Regnum Raya, Antalya

At Regnum Carya, eco and green innovations are in their mission. The innovative eco-friendly programs and initiatives are made to protect its surroundings and reduce their impact on nature of Antalya, Turkey. As Europe's first golf hotel to be awarded by Gold Certification, the culture of their daily operations is influenced and guided by responsible, sustainable philosophies. Furthermore, Regnum Carya has been built in terms of a progressive perspective on green building and TURKECO counseling given by the Association of the US Green Building.

Green strategies of the hotel are:

· Sustainable Sites

· Water Efficiency

· Energy and Atmosphere

· Materials and Resources

· Indoor Environmental highly qualified

· Innovation in design

In addition to its program after the award, Regnum Carya employs a number of high priority sustainable projects such as:

· Energy management

· Water waste management

· Air quality protection management

· Control and management of food and beverage wastes

· Chemical-waste management

· Management of the surroundings (garden, parks, beaches)

· Saving natural heritage of the destination management

Table 12 Best practices 4

Eco-Hotels all over the world	Best practices that can take Greek tourism industry from them
Hi-Hotel (Nice, France)	1) food in-keeping with eco values 2) room that changes the color to match the time 3)spa focuses on wellness treatments
Empuries Hostal (Girona, Spain)	1) rooms are insulated with sheep's wool and its hallway carpets are made from grass 2) Hotel's materials choice is based on values such as sustainability and solidarity 3) Both shower and bath walls have been lined with old hydraulic mosaics 4) solar-powered light will guide the traveler to its natural therapy spa
Regnum Raya (Antalya, Turkey)	1) Waste, energy, water management, air quality protection and noise control management 2) Innovation in design

Greek eco and green hotels should take into account best practices from other European green hotels. As an example, make a spa with green materials. Materials choice can be in general based on values such as sustainability and solidarity. Usage of a solar power for electrical devises and water consumption it is also a necessary aspect in green and eco-hotels. Have different department for water, energy, air quality protection management. Or have the same department like “green” department with concerning for all the previous ones.



3.6 Recommendations

Criteria of choosing these innovations:

The criteria will be about 3 innovations that are the most unique (taking the biggest grade out of scale 5), 3 innovations which will be the most influential for seasonality in Greece and 3 that has the biggest impact to stakeholders. Everything will be based on grades that were given for built the second regression. A second main criterion is to have one case from every classification in unique, influence in seasonality and impact in stakeholders. So as a result the table is formed like this:

Table 13

	Unique	Influence in seasonality	Impact in stakeholders
Technological	Incrediblue	Sense Zagori Project	Leave like local
Organizational	Mastiha Museum	Mouzenidis Travel	Aigle Geni Hamam
Social	A Million Senses	Dimitra Kokkevi	Eumelia Organic Farm

Evaluating the innovations:

Incrediblue

Three Greek citizens in the business industry noticed a gap in the tourism market and came up with an idea which came into force after some months. The idea was about creation of an online platform for travelers that will be interested in renting a boat or a yacht for their vacation at an affordable price, without intermediate person.

Incrediblue is an online platform in which everyone can rent a luxury yacht or a simple boat in all the seaside destinations in Greece. The company starts a very important cooperation with a Spanish company Nautal Smart Sailing. Now it is working in 30 countries with around 200000 yachts all over Europe. The main unique characteristic of the company is that it is the only one rent-a-yacht company which works with all the sea side of Greece. As it is an online platform, it considers as a technological innovation. The online platform for boat rental which in a short time has managed to expand throughout Europe wined an award for this reason in 2014.

Incrediblue received funding from a European Organization which helps entrepreneurs with brand-new ideas. The organization provides people with support for the development of startups. It is co-financed by the European Investment Fund as well.

In Google Trends the interest and tendency increases over time but the last two years (2017-2018) it is increasing by the name of Nautal (the Spanish company which cooperates with Incrediblue and nowadays the brand-name is Nautal.

Mastic Museum

The Mastic Museum of Chios is located in Mastihochoria. These are many historic villages in South of the island. This place is the only in the whole World in which the Pistacia lentiscus var. Chia (particular variety of Mastic) can be planted. Only from this plant the mastic is produced. Many attempts have been done to produce mastic from this plant in other parts of the world, but without any result. This makes it unique.

The Mastic Museum of Chios has as its main goal to show the productive history of the cultivation and processing of mastic. The cultural landscape of Chios is highly connected with Mastic and in general is the main exporting and importing products in the island and the one that makes it economically stable all year round. From the point of view of the comprehension of traditional mastic cultivation by UNESCO in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humankind in 2014, emphasis is placed on the progression and sustainability of this Chain product.

The museum takes its financial support from European Union and Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (which gives founds also for other 8 museums all over Greece) and it took award for the innovative organization in terms of marketing and promotion campaign that it creates on 2015. The unique characteristic in this innovation is that it presents a unique product and because it is the only museum in the World of this kind.

A million senses

A million senses is a unique innovative tour operator which makes tour packages for autistic families. It creates travel tours in several Greek destinations. The company located in Chios Island but works for all over Greece. It is the only tourism operator which works with autistic people. That characteristic makes it unique in terms of innovation. Moreover, it belongs into accessible tourism, which makes it a social innovation. A million senses interact also to big amount of stakeholders. Firstly, because all the tour packages are connected with hotels all over Greece, accessible transportation, plane tickets and many activities in which autistic people could take part. So as a result, it interacts with many stakeholders. It took an award in 2018 for its services into society and for its helping in reducing seasonality.

Sense Zagori Project

Zagori is located near the Pindus Mountains in Epirus region, in northwestern Greece. The area contains 45 villages known as Zagori villages Costas Zissis (2006). Zagori, Images of a Greek Heritage. Zagori is an area of an amazing natural beauty, with astonishing geology and two National Parks. However, the area suffers from seasonality because it is a mountain area with bigger amount of tourism stream in winter months. The Sense Zagori project is an innovative tourism product which helps the seasonality to be reduced. The application was come into force by the company Warply, a pioneering tool that gives the visitor access to a live open museum about. The application provides the traveler with a diversity of historical, cultural, environmental and educational information. Entries to the platform are free for everyone and to download the application as well.

The application is supported by an active website (www.sensezagori.com) which contains practical information, making the area totally accessible to the visitor, both in digital and real level. Local businesses and operators will be able to be online and refresh digital tools with current information that will help visitor knows everything that happens around. Furthermore, the application gives the opportunity to the visitor call for help, in case of emergency or any need, anywhere the user is in real time. This is particularly useful for those who choose one of the many hiking routes. Also, in the application there is free of charge GPS positioning, making the experience safe and make the application very travel-friendly and helpful in many ways.