Effect of tourism enterprise managers' innovation perception on innovation activities and innovation strategies: A research in Bartın , Zonguldak and Karabük provinces

The situation that the importance of the innovation activities increases gradually is no longer a preference, it has become a necessity. The purposes of this thesis study are to measure the innovation perceptions of the managers of tourism enterprises; and in the direction of their innovation perception, to evaluate what kind of innovation activities and innovation strategies they gravitate towards. Questionnaire forms with five point scales were prepared to be used in the research and these questionnaire forms were used to measure the above-mentioned variables. The study was carried out on the managers of the hotel enterprises that have touristic establishment certificate and have operation permits from the municipalities in Bartın, Zonguldak and Karabük provinces of the Western Black Sea Region. Reliability analysis, frequency analysis, Kruskal Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U test, correlation analysis and regression analysis were applied on the obtained data by using SPSS program pack. As the result of the correlation and regression analyzes applied in the research, it was found that there is a partial relationship between innovation perceptions and innovation activities, however, it was concluded that there is no relationship with some variables. In addition, the results of the Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests revealed that the innovation perception differs according to certain demographic variables. Key Words: Tourism Enterprise Managers, Innovation, Perception of Innovation