Evaluation of tourism development in the context of entrepreneurship factors: a comparative study on Beypazarı and Safranbolu

The process of globalization, the development of transport and technological advances have accelerated the development of tourism in the world. Because of the global economic restructuring and decreasing importance of the manufacturing industry in the world's most developed cities, the local governments tend to develop tourism to provide local economic development and to stimulate their economies. In this context, it is important to evaluate the effects of tourism entrepreneurship factors (including characteristics of firms, abilities of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship climate factors consisting of social, geographical and economic environments) on tourism development and to determine and encourage performance factors to achieve regional development and tourism development goals. With stimulating of tourism sector in Turkey in recent years, economic development based on tourism have begun in the inland areas outside the tourism areas in the coastal regions. This study aims at determining effective enterpreneurship factors for Beypazarı and Safranbolu districts where tourism development has based on the conservation of traditional houses. As a total, 119 questionnnary survey and face to face interviews were conducted in the study. 87 of them were done with the entrepreneurs in Safranbolu and 32 of them with the entrepreneurs in Beypazarı. The results were evaluated by using SPSS. In addition, the logistic regression method was used to determine the success factors of entrepreneurship. The findings of the study shows that the small family-owned businesses dominate the tourism sector in Safranbolu and Beypazarı. Also results indicate that entrepreneurs are mostly middle or upper aged males who enter the industry sector in relation to lifestyle and autonomy factors. According to the study, entrepreneurs in Beypazarı have secondary education level, while higher education level dominates the Safranbolu case. Having experience and having tourism marketing plan appear to be the common success factors in both areas. In addition to this fact, Safranbolu has a higher growth potential with various success factors in tourism industry. Also the findings of the study reveal that the success factors of tourism entrepreneurship in Safranbolu and Beypazarı are different from the other developed tourism areas in Turkey.