Cross-border tourism and innovation system failures

Abstract

The literature on cross-border regional innovation systems suggests that facilitating cross-border interaction and knowledge flows promotes the innovativeness of border regions. Tourism can heighten the interaction and knowledge flows between populations, businesses, and other organisations on opposing sides of the border. However, by reviewing empirical studies on the topic, the paper contends that progress towards cross-border regional innovation system integration has remained modest while the role of tourism in facilitating it has remained under investigated. The paper demonstrates how the systems failure approach offers an effective framework to address these research and policy gaps: a deeper understanding of the nature of failure can provide an important steppingstone to advancing the role of tourism in cross-border development.