Abstract:

The globalization leads an increase in competition between enterprises in the tourism sector which is one of the economical industries. As a result firms have begun implementing various strategies and policies to maintain and enhance their competitive advantage. One of the most important strategies and policies that enterprises develop and implement is innovation, because enterprises can be differ from their rivals with innovation. There are several factors that cause to innovate or not to innovate. These factors may vary depend on variables such as the size of the enterprises, number of employee, getting incentives to establish and the year of operation. In this regard, studies conducted with large-scaled tourism enterprises are limited, but the number of studies that study innovation policies in small and medium sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs) is very limited. Thus, the aim of the paper is to reveal the reasons for the innovation in the SMTEs, obstacles of innovation, the SMTEs' innovation policies and the economic policies. For this purpose, a questionnaire has been applied to the accommodation enterprises employing fewer than 250 employees in Kaleiçi, Antalya region. According to the results, the most important reason for innovation in the SMEs is to increase the quality of service, while the most important reason to obstacle innovation is cost. Within the last three years, SMEs have followed the policy of reducing costs by increasing operational efficiency as the economic practice and have improved service and marketing innovations more as an innovation policy.

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