Collaborative innovation, partners, and geographical proximity in the tourism sector in Chile

Increasingly, firms collaborate with diverse actors to innovate, such as other business organizations and business support organizations. A better understanding of the relationship between the actors engaged in collaborative innovation is essential to innovation management and policy. However, literature on collaborative innovation addressing emerging countries and the tourism sector is relatively scarce. Using data from 257 Chilean tourism firms and partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), we analyze the effect of the interrelations of tourism firms with business and support organizations on product and process innovation and the effect of geographical proximity. The results state that collaboration with business organizations as buyers and suppliers facilitates innovation. In addition, collaboration with business support organizations such as universities, public organisms, and technological centers facilitates process innovation and is influenced by geographical proximity. Conclusions and implications are discussed.