Differentiation as a competitive strategy: a study on hotel establisments

The concept of competition has also been used intensely in hotel business as well as in other areas. Hotel managements should apply their own strategy, which is different than the other competitors, in order to continue their existence in this competitive environment in which violence increases each passing day. The main purpose of this study is to identify which areas that hotel managements have differences compared to their competitors and whether these differences can be used as competition strategy or not. In the first part of the study, concepts of competition and strategy are explained. Competition strategies and differentiation are described and which areas differentiation strategies are applied is explained with examples in the second part. In the third part, research method is explained first and to detect differences between hotel managements, themes which are acquired from content analysis examine resulted from interviews which were done with 34 hotel managers in Kuşadası region are explained with participants' opinions. In the conclusion part of the study, themes which are detected in the interviews done with the participants are interpreted and discussed about whether they can be used as differentiation strategy or not by the researcher. KEY WORDS: Competition, Strategy, Differentiation, Hotel, Kuşadası