Analyzing the individual innovativeness levels of managers operating in rural tourism in terms of different variables (participants and businesses related to) and the innovation among rural tourism: An example of Kocaeli/Kartepe region

In this study; it has been aimed to determine the demographical characteristics of rural tourism managers operating in the province of Kartepe, Kocaeli province, to reveal the relation of innovativeness scores with various variables. Research group of the survey consists of the managers of 65 rural tourism enterprises operating in the province of Kartepe.Personal Information Form and Individual Innovativeness Scale were developed by Hurt, Joseph and Cook in 1977 adapted to Turkish by Kilicer and Odabasi was used in 2010 with an attempt to examine the individual innovativeness levels of participants in the study in terms of various variables and the reliability coefficient scale was calculated as 0.76. In the analysis of the data, frequency and percentage distribution, arithmetic mean and standard deviation, cross tables, t-test, variance analysis (ANOVA) and post hoc Tukey test were used. As a result of the research, it has been determined that individual innovative levels of rural tourism managers are low and took part in the skeptical sub-category which belongs to innovative individual's. A statistically significant differences were found between individual innovativeness scores/ and age, educational status, tourism education, type of business, previous sector change, weekly internet usage, internet usage, site, interpersonal relationship level related to rural tourism. The results have been interpreted in consideration of the literature anddifferent suggestions have been developed.