How the HibriturSelva partnership promotes economic development through tourism innovations

Change management

The approach used within the project HibriturSelva combines three key elements:

The "Eco-System" concept stresses the importance of establishing connections between local actors, which is only possible when genuine needs are addressed and synergies between the actors involved are taken into account. This enables new partnerships to make joint bids for grants and to launch joint initiatives.

The second pillar, "Open Innovation", responds to the fact that business and public sector organisations do not have sufficient resources, acting alone, to develop and deliver innovations.

The third pillar of the project is "Hybridisation" which promotes a multidisciplinary approach, including the development of "improbable connections" between actors who may never have worked with each other before, as they have not perceived each other as potential partners.

These social innovations have been triggered by a multi-stage innovation process including:

An annual call for projects
Innovation Labs to develop proposals
Launch of project teams
Incubation projects
Development of products and services

Mainstreaming of new products and services in the local offer.

The innovation process has been supported by a range of communication and training activities such as:

Creation of the website which provides information about new products and services and resources for the tourism sector
Development of a digital platform (http://plataforma.hibriturselva.cat) with 306 members, organised in 29 groups
Dissemination of the monthly HibriturSelva Newsletter
Coordination and dissemination of the network meetings

Training sessions for SMEs on the creation of tourism services and products