Innovative leadership behaviour perceptions and smart tourism applications in chain hotel businesses: The case of Antalya

The relationship between human and machine was founded associated with industrial revolution. This revolution, realized in businesses, is still in progress. Migrations started from rural areas to cities for better living conditions after this revolution and the populations of cities increased. The quality of daily life in the city decrease because of the increase and solutions were searched. One of the solutions of today is the concept of smart city. The aim of smart cities, that have technologic infrastructure such as information technology, information and communication technology, internet, cloud system and internet of navigation, is to improve the quality of daily life of locals and visitors. This structure, that contributes to tourism, provides visitors to explore the destination with unusual experiences and is called "smart tourism". Smart tourism and the technologies used by tourism businesses aim to improve the quality of experience served to visitors. Innovative leaders, compatible with change, adopted to continuous improvement and open-minded, are the significant values in smart tourism. The aim of this research is to determine the creative and innovative leadership behaviours of chain hotel managers via perspective of employees. Another aims of the research are to determine the benefits of smart tourism technology applications via viewpoints of hotel managers and to determine the smart tourism technologies used in chain hotel businesses. The chain hotel businesses operating in Antalya are the population of this research. The executives of 12 chain hotel businesses accepted to participate in research. The questions of the research were handed in via questionnaire. The data, acquired from 12 executives and 291 employees, were analyzed. According to the results of the research, it is determined that the employees perceive the behaviours of their managers creative and innovative. This perception differs in employees' age, department, working year in business or in tourism sector. According to executives, smart tourism technologies are useful for businesses. Using smart tourism technologies provides competitive advantage, increases sales and productivity of employees and strengten the organizational image. It is determined that high speed internet access, electronic switching, smart televisions, in-room electronic safe box, cashless and mobile payment systems, reservation systems, check-in/check-out processes and kiosks, customer loyalty systems, QR menus, fingerprint and face detection systems, employee information system, purchasing, accounting and financial modules are the smart tourism technologies used by most of the businesses.