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WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS
Tourism & creative industry . Valencia, July, 11&12th, 2013
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usually have their own space and time for creativity and rely in networking with
an extensive social context.
It could be concluded (Gomez and Bouty, 2009), that innovation in cuisine it
is not solely a cognitive work but it comprises feelings, perceptions, emotions,
aesthetic judgments and the social position, history and style of the chef.
Finally, according to Albors et al (2009) an innovation model could be proposed
according to figure 1 reflecting innovation in haute cuisine and the various
steps of developing a new product.
Field work
A survey was carried out among chefs or managers of 60 restaurants in the
Valencia Region during the months of October 2011 to March 2011). These
were selected among those firms within a first level quality according to the
Regional Tourism Classification which takes into account infrastructure, services
and dish offering. Finally, we received 45 completed questionnaires. The survey
was complemented with personal interviews among five chefs, owners or
managers of these restaurants.
The questionnaire included a number of questions referred in first place to
the profile of the firm such as turnover, staff size and offered services. The
questionnaire main body covered also questions related to the innovative
activity of the restaurant.
Results and Discussion
Innovating activity
A 49 % of respondents declared to carry out innovating activities either in
product development, services or processes. Their distribution is as follows.
In relation to the innovation in products the respondents declared the creation
of new dishes based in traditional cooking or nouvelle cuisine or special
minimalist designs or alternative ingredients such as substituting sugar, or
vegetables based gels, etc. The process innovations mentioned were vacuum