SPECIALITIES OF TOURISM INNOVATIONS – A LITERATURE REVIEW WITH CONCLUSIONS FOR CULTURAL ROUTES NAGY, Katalin Tourism expert, Assistant Lecturer University of Miskolc, Faculty of Economics, Marketing Institute, Tourism Department Abstract: Tourism, as a service industry, has different characteristics than other economical fields. Its features determine innovation activities, too. Traditional R+D+I cannot, or just rarely be conceived, due to the deficiencies in size, human and financial resources of the tourism service sector. Tourism is rather the utilizer of innovations coming from other branches, technological or technical inventions. Thus, there are different principles and models regarding tourism innovations. This paper gives a kind of review about these differences. Cultural routes as special tourism products can also be a field for innovations, especially for process and organisational innovations, where cooperation models can also be a good basis for further examinations. Keywords: innovation, tourism, tourism innovations, cultural routes, cooperation “A product is what you buy; an experience is what you remember.” [ Michelle Sears, 2011 ] 1. INTRODUCTION Regarding economic sectors, tourism is not the field where innovations could change the history. Thus, it is understandable that innovation resources focus on the technology demanding and productive sectors. Nevertheless, global innovations have also been influential in tourism, such as the determining inventions in transportation, or the development of information technology. Today, the process innovations are missing from the sector most of all. However, the situation is not so