Yasri Yasri, Jieun-Lim, Ramdani Bayu Putra, Rahmiati Rahmiati, Muthia Roza Linda
Creativity and innovation are important things that must be owned by tourist destination employees in order to compete with other tourist destinations. This study aims to analyze the impact of creativity and innovation on destination competitiveness and destination sustainability. The population of this research consisted of 1,227,980 domestic tourists and 4946 foreign tourists. The sample size was 322 units and was drawn using non-probability sampling. Each environmentally friendly tourist destination is drawn proportionally. Data were collected using surveys directly given to tourists who were visiting tourist destinations in West Sumatra. Data were analyzed using structural equation models (SEM) and processed with PLS. The study results show that the creativity and innovativeness of tourist destination employees have a positive impact on the competitiveness of tourist destinations in Indonesia. Creativity and innovativeness of tourist destination employees also have a direct impact on destination sustainability. Furthermore, destination competitiveness acts as a mediator of the influence of creativity and innovativeness on destination sustainability. This study contributes to the development of tourism sector management science, practitioners, managers of tourism business, and policy makers. This study is the small number of variables studied, so it is hoped that further research can analyze several other factors that have an impact on destination competitiveness and destination sustainability. This study is the only one that analyzes the creativity and innovativeness of tourist destination employees on destination competitiveness and destination sustainability and also focuses on ecotourism in Indonesia, which is the uniqueness of this study. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2026.
Universitas Negeri, Padang, Indonesia; Jungwon University, Goesan, South Korea; Universitas Putra Indonesia, Padang, Indonesia
