Innovation, which leads to process changes and product development, tends to increase the sustenance of companies and helps firms to expand faster and more effectively, eventually more profitably than non-innovators. Innovation is commonly seen as a key source of sustainable competitive advantage in a changing environment. However, the success of the hospitality industry relies a lot on how well they gear their innovations towards preserving the natural and cultural attractions that make tourist/customers to visit their destinations. This study, therefore, is empirically designed to explore how innovation types, which include process, product, marketing, and organizational innovation, impact performance of hotel firms in Ghana. With top-level managers being our target respondents, 680 star rated hotels were purposely sampled from the hospitality industry, among which 550 hotel firms provided valid and accurate responses. Data obtained from the survey through the administration of a well-structured questionnaire was analyzed through SPSS statistical package. Through the estimation of series of regression models using the Hierarchical regression method of analysis, we witnessed that process, product, marketing, and organizational innovation employed as innovation types have palpable and statistically significant liaison with performance of hotel firms in Ghana. We, therefore, conclude that, for hotels to achieve high firm performance, personnel within the firm should be encouraged and empowered to develop innovative mentalities and abilities. In addition, hotel firms and the industry at large should be abreast of current trends of sustainability and endeavor to gear their innovation operations towards a more sustainability-oriented firm since incorporating sustainable innovative strategies into firms’ operations will not only create a good image and reduce cost but would also safeguard the natural attractions that guests patronize.

The financial landscape of sub-Sahara Africa is undergoing major changes due to the advent of FinTech, which has seen mobile payments boom in the region. This paper examines the salient role of mobile payments in traditional banks’ drive toward financial accessibility in sub-Sahara Africa by using panel econometric approaches that consider the issues of independencies among cross-sectional residuals. Using data from the World Development Index (WDI) 2011–2017 on 11 countries in the region, empirical results from cross-sectional dependence (CD) tests, panel unit root test, panel cointegration test, and the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) approach indicates that (i) the panel time series data are cross-sectionally independent, (ii) the variables have the same order of integration and are cointegrated, and (iii) growth in mobile payment transactions had a significant positive relationship with formal account ownership, the number of ATMs, and number of new bank branches in the long-run. The paper therefore confirms that the institutional structure of traditional banks that makes them competitive, irrespective of emerging disruptive technologies, has stimulated overall financial accessibility in the region leading to overall sustainable growth in the financial sector. We conclude the paper with feasible policy suggestions.