Innovation Strategies of Tourism MSMEs for Sustainable Tourism Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

MSMEs constitute the structural backbone of global tourism economies, yet their capacity to pursue innovation-driven sustainability pathways remains systematically undertheorised and empirically fragmented. While individual studies have examined specific innovation types or barriers in isolation, no comprehensive synthesis simultaneously maps dominant innovation strategies, interrogates prevailing methodological and theoretical orientations, and critically identifies barriers, success factors, and future directions for tourism MSME innovation. This study addresses that gap through a SLR of 63 peer-reviewed articles retrieved from the Scopus database covering the period 2020–2026. The PRISMA 2020 protocol guided the screening and selection process across 217 initially identified records. Three research questions structured the synthesis. The findings reveal seven dominant innovation strategy clusters: digital innovation, green innovation, business model innovation, marketing innovation, social innovation, service innovation, and community-based innovation. Methodologically, the corpus is dominated by quantitative survey-based approaches underpinned by Resource-Based View and Innovation Diffusion Theory, while longitudinal, ethnographic, and multi-stakeholder designs remain scarce. Financial constraints, digital literacy deficits, institutional voids, and fragmented governance structures are identified as primary barriers, with leadership capacity, collaborative ecosystems, and sustainability orientation serving as key enablers. The study's novelty resides in its cross-cutting synthesis integrating strategy classification, theoretical critique, and future research agenda, with explicit attention to developing-country and Indonesian MSME contexts.

Keywords: digital innovation, green innovation, innovation strategy, sustainable tourism, tourism MSMEs