Abstract
With the rapid economic growth the service industry has contributed to 70% of the Taiwan's GDP in 2005. Tourism has been selected as one of the target industries for promoting the development of service industry. Nowadays the study on the service industry has become increasingly important; however, very little research has been conducted on the innovations of the service industry, not to mention its application to the tourism industry. Besides, approximately 30-40% of the inbound tourists are from Japan, they take much profitability for Taiwan. This work investigates the application of the service innovation theory to the tourism industry based on qualitative research. Through multi-source data, specifically interviews with inbound travel agencies and officials of the tourism bureau, this work surveys the application of the service innovation theory, and captures the tacit information of the tourism industry which cannot be obtained and analyzed by traditional quantitative approaches. We also observe the current status of the tourism industry by modes of service innovation defined by the European Union, including customized innovation, marketing innovation, organization innovation, product innovation, and process innovation. By employing these forms of innovation, the proposed work can expedite the originality research process of tourism industry.