Introduction Due to fierce competition in the marketplace, globalization and an explosion of technology in recent years, innovation and differentiation are considered as a necessity for every company (Tajeddini & Trueman, 2008a). At the same time, to achieve market success and sustain a competitive advantage, businesses need to exploit new opportunities, develop new products and/or services and markets (Berthon, McHulbert, & Pitt, 2004) as well as place customer orientation at the heart of the firm’s competitiveness (Deshpande, Farley, & Webster, 1993). Hospitality entrepreneurship is a pivotal factor in the development and growth of many national economies (Hospitality Standards Institute, 2012), and in Taiwan, a significant proportion of hospitality businesses are small owner-operated outlets (). Therefore, understanding the nature of, and challenges faced by hospitality entrepreneurs is an important issue for researchers, as well as current and future entrepreneurs, financial institutions, local authorities, and government. This article reports on an exploratory study of qualitative data collected through open-ended questions, understanding of the many factors influencing entrepreneurs to start their businesses. Literature As noted by Middleton (2001), small businesses form a seedbed for the entrepreneurial and enterprise culture on which much of the profit and employment prospects of big businesses ultimately depend. This observation clearly indicates the difference between small business owners and entrepreneurs. But although support for this viewpoint in the literature is universal, some researchers do not draw such a fine line between the two terms when discussing related issues; also, studies of small business firms are usually found in the entrepreneurship literature, where sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably. The existing entrepreneurship literature shows that several critical factors influence the birth and growth of start-up firms. These factors include both macro-level environmental and micro-level, or personal level, forces. Studies focusing on the former often examine the influence of politics, culture, society, economics, competition, and demographics on a person’s decision to start or grow a new business in a specific setting; this in turn can take place at different levels, such as the company, city, region, or nation (Jogartnam, 2002; Ramos-Rodriguez et al., 2012). Studies on the latter investigate the influence of personal characteristics, such as subculture, social factors (e.g., role, status, reference group), personal factors (e.g., age, gender, education, life cycle, personality, self-perception, lifestyles, values), and psychological factors (e.g., motives, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, learning, risk-taking propensity, etc. (Littunen, 2000; Ramos-Rodriguez et al., 2012). This study adopted Chen and Elston’s (2013) entrepreneurial activity model for classifying and modeling these factors affecting firm start-ups and growth. Fig. 1 captures this process and highlights the critical factors influencing the entrepreneurial process and their various relationships. In this model, the macro-environment mix influences not only a person’s personal characteristics but also this person’s entrepreneurial process. These personal characteristics in turn also influence the entrepreneurial process. The research methodology was conducted with qualitative research method. Firstly, we interviewed the experts with regard to this industry, and then used content analysis for the interview records. After the in-depth interviews, a grounded theory was adopted to analyze the interview data with repeated coding and reading, and then innovative entrepreneurship were coded into fundamental categories with diverse descriptions (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). These descriptions represent the idea and meaning squeeze from the transcripts of interview. As for the research reliability, we read the biographies of participants and collect relative information such as their provided books, documents and reports from the news. To guarantee the validity of this study, we also improve the research content with researchers’ interview and reflection notes. Those notes were observation on innovative entrepreneurship process in this study. Therefore, these systematic methods could conclude a theory for a specific phenomenon (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Results The results of our qualitative analysis demonstrated the opinions of experts with regard to innovative entrepreneurship in hotel industry. Based on Chen and Elston’s (2013) entrepreneurial activity model, the characteristics of each concept were grounded with four dimensions: (1) Macro-environment mix (2) Personal characteristics (3) Entrepreneurial Proces (4) Major entrepreneurial outcome. The experts’ critical viewpoints are also presented by typical quotations. (1) Macro-environment mix ● Shifting Market “Now the entire consumer market is shifting, everyone booking via the internet.”(sample 1) “When you book a hotel or a flight, people like the price competition. So you may have to spend a lot of time.” (sample 9) ● The old technology “We are still using the technology more than a decade ago. Taiwan is still running the hotel in a very traditional way. It is when I open a hotel , I am looking for some people, and then ... I think I will make money. In fact, a lot of know how they do not know.”(sample 1) ● Price competition “We think the outbound market has entered the Red Sea. The inbound market has not been fully developed and has potential for development. Therefore, we would not like to see the inbound market enter the price competition.” (sample 6) ● Want Taiwan to be seen “Taiwan's B & B are really world-class highlights in tourism industry.”(DEAR BNB) ● Make up the industrial gap “We think Taiwan needs a brand new high-quality hotel and lodging platform and we did it.” (sample 3) “I think what we do is very traditional! Just fill the gap by using the resources we have integrated with the method we want.” (sample 4) (2) Personal characteristics ● Personal interest “I like traveling, I like going abroad, I like to fly.”(sample 8) “This is my hobby, I also like to interact with people.” (sample 4) ● Doing what I want to do “I just want to do what I want to do.”(sample 8) “I like the Internet and marketing but don’t like to do engineer. “(sample 7) ● Apply own expertise “Using my own technology and see the market demand gap, hoping to help Taiwan's lodging industry can be transformed, technology upgrades, do not have to monopolize by the traditional manufacturers.” (sample 1) “I study hospitality and work for a year in Taipei Evergreen Hotel, and later went to Vancouver to study hotel management. To start a new venture also an ultimate goal of our depasample 6ent, so I think it must be done.” (sample 2) ● Personal life experience “I think creation needs inspiration, inspiration comes from life experience. Entrepreneurship will not have nothing, what you have to do today, it must have some relationship with your past life experience.” (sample 3) (3) Entrepreneurial Process ● Self-finaning “I did not find someone or looking for funds.” (sample 4) “I have a deposit of 20 years, our funds are wholly-owned. We do not borrow money from banks nor fundraising or venture capital.” (sample 5) ● Related connections “Originally, my good friend who knew about the lodging industry. You are ready, and then meet the right people, and then a good time point enter into the right market.” (sample 1) “When talent comes in, they will recommend people who have such abilities and values. Therefore, we have not publicly recruited R & D people.” (sample 4) ● Try and error “In the beginning, we don’t seriously think about our business model. Through more case, we revise our business model.”(sample 6) “After my trip, I wanted to start a business. At that time, I did not have many ideas, so I did a lot of work to find directions.” (sample 7) ● Find the right shareholder “Shareholders are important. When finding shareholders, his resources and skills are very important. I want more than his money.” (sample 2) ● Play a consultant role “We are selling our ideas, as well as selling our resources, experience so a bit like a consultant's role.” (sample 7) (4) Major entrepreneurial outcome ● Change the industry ecology “We have successfully changed some of the airline's mind, we have changed the hotel's promotional model and have changed an ecological.”(sample 8) ” The core of entrepreneurship is to "re-establish an ecosystem".(sample 5) ● Tourism industry knowledge education and personnel training of think tanks “We want to make domain knowledge, know-how in tourism industry can be extracted, shared, and can be taught textbook.” (smaple 6) ● Package Form a network and provide a unique package “In addition to the network, we hope to the forming some unique service package.” (sample 5) “Our three companies are different areas and require different skills. In the future, we would integrate them.” (sample 7) Discussion and conclusions This study examined the innovative entrepreneurship with start up in the hotel industry. Using content analysis method to access the research conclusions, the four key components of entrepreneurial activity: Macro-environment mix, personal characteristics, entrepreneurial process and major entrepreneurial outcome (Chen and Elston, 2013) were adopted to set up a theoretical framework. The results of our research were provided through a systematic approach to interpret and summarize experts’ professional opinions. These data were collected by in-depth and semi-structured interviews which give participants opportunities to express their opinions based on their experience in innovative entrepreneurship of hospitality. Meanwhile, the concepts of experts’ comprehensions were written into different characteristics with logical explanations. Most important of all, our research contributes to the entrepreneurship literature. Though some previous studies have discussed Chen and Elston’s (2013) entrepreneurial activity model, none of them tried to integrate this perspective with start up company in hotel industry. Therefore, the results of this study filled the gap between theory and practice, and provide a distinct example for future innovative entrepreneurship research in hospitality. To sum up, as most previous research focus on theoretical or practical perspective to interpret entrepreneurship, the result of this research further contribute the development of innovative entrepreneurship especially in start up. These findings offered essential framework and required knowledge of strategies for current and future trends in this field.

Introduction In view of the fact that innovation and entrepreneurship are the major trends in the tourism and hospitality industry and the entry technology for the tourism and hospitality industry is easier for start-ups than for high-tech industries and for small and medium-sized enterprises with low thresholds for investment, the demand for business start-ups by the general public has become more and more frequent The larger the cultivation of talents is, the more intense it is. At present, foreign countries have begun to pay more attention to the tourism and hospitality industry for innovation and entrepreneurship (Weiermair, Stiller, & Mossenlechner, 2006; Zapalska, Brozik, & Rudd, 2004; Lee, Hallak, & Sardeshmukh, 2016), there is a lack of integration and comprehensiveness. Most studies only focus on the entrepreneur's personal characteristics, entrepreneur's personal factors, and entrepreneurial psychology (Hisrich, 1990; Littunen, 2000; Zapalska et al., 2004; Ramos-Rodriguez et al., 2012). Compared with the previous single-level discussion, this study will explore the key elements of innovation and entrepreneurship in tourism and hospitality industry through expert interview. Theoritical Development Innovation plays an important central role in entrepreneurship (Hebert & Link, 2006). In the past, there was also a lot of empirical research that identified innovation as a tenet of hotel organization performance (Agarwal, Erramilli, & Dev, 2003; Grissemann, Plank, & Brunner-Sperdin, 2013; Lin, 2013; Lee et al., 2016). Hotel industry products are difficult to protect through patents, etc. Therefore, continuous product innovation is very important for the hotel industry and is the main factor in keeping the leading competitive edge in the industry (Agarwal et al., 2003). What's more, implementing a new management structure, improving operational efficiency through new technologies, and new logistics and delivery systems make the enterprise a price-competitive advantage with lower costs due to innovation (Lin, 2013). In addition Enz and Siguaw (2003) believe that hoteliers can gain more competitive advantage if they can integrate and implement innovations in daily operations. From the study of Ndubisi and Iftikhar (2012), it is found that entrepreneurship really affects the innovation of SMEs. All in all, the current tourism and hospitality industry in Taiwan is mostly characterized by SMEs. According to the literature review, this study finds that innovation is the intermediary variable that catalyzes the initiation of entrepreneurial activity by innovation. Research Design The data on which this paper is based consist of expert concepts of hotel innovation and entrepreneurship in Taiwan and investigations into their views on innovation and entrepreneurship, which have developed over the course of their specialized experience. The experts had an average of 13 years of experience in researching, teaching, or hospitality management in the field of hotel innovation and entrepreneurship. The scholars we selected had excellent academic reputations and teaching experience in innovation and entrepreneurship. Most of the industry experts selected had experience in assisting hotels to carry out their innovation and entrepreneurship, whose duties are relevant to organizational innovation and entrepreneurship implementation and whose corporations have pursued innovation and entrepreneurship related activities that can be found in mass media or are certified in innovation and entrepreneurship related practices. Result and Conclusion As the hotel industry continues to expand, innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives are imperative. In this study, the innovation and entrepreneurship conceptual framework in the hotel industry contains not only the elements of personal factors, organizational factors, but also innovation and entrepreneurship performance, such as competitive advantages. That is, hotels can implement innovation and entrepreneurship through personal or organizational factors. For instance, encouraging members to interact and learn together, through mutual trust toward a common goal, and then create business and personal fruitful. It can provide a clear and complete process of an innovation and entrepreneurship program, which is important for practitioners to reduce uncertainty and the cost of trial and error and increase their motivation to practice.