Inovasi Produk Dalam “Program Homestay” Penerokaan Di Wilayah Pantai Timur Persekutuan Tanah Melayu, Malaysia

Innovation is an important aspect for all sectors including the tourism sector. The challenging external environment forced businesses to innovate for continuously competitive. Accordingly, improvement and creating new product should be implemented in line with the tourist desire. The rural Homestay Program is one of the unique activities and has the potential to grow in tourism. This study intends to explore the implementation of product innovations in this program on the East Coast Federation of Malaya, Malaysia. Two Homestay programs were selected based on the high performance of tourist arrivals in 2016 and have a uniqueness of the packages offered. A qualitative approach using a face-to-face interview has been done with the Homestay’s coordinators. The findings show that the Homestay programs have implemented the product innovation in terms of accommodation, activity packages and enterprises. This result can be used by the industry to upgrade the program Homestay in Malaysia as an effort to increase competitive advantage through innovation.