The effects of innovation strategies on qualitative and quantitative performance in tourism enterprises: The case of Safranbolu

The main purpose of this study is to research, innovation strategies (aggressive, defensive, imitator dependent, conventional, opportunity following) of tourism enterprises whether these strategies have effects on qualitative (employee loyalty, customer satisfaction, innovation) and quantitative (productivity, profitability, number of customers, employee turnover rate and general performance) performance. Besides it is aimed to examine the strategies that tourism enterprises prefer and apply. In the literature Innovation Strategies are classified as Aggressive Strategy, Defensive Strategy, Imitation Strategy, Dependent Strategy, Conventional Strategy and Opportunity Following. Company performance is analyzed in eight different aspects such as employee loyalty customer satisfaction, innovation, productivity, profitability, number of customer workforce turnover rate and general performance. The study area of this survey is the hotel establishments in Safranbolu. It is aimed to determine which strategies the hotel enterprises prefer and whether these strategies have an effect on quantitative and qualitative performance of the hotel. In this context business performance was considered as dependent variables while innovation strategies was considered.In this research survey method has been used pilot study has been carried out at a three-star hotel in Safranbolu. The SPSS 15 for Windows was used to analyse the data by applying descriptive statistics, Factor Analysis, Reliability Analysis, Correlation Analysis, Regression Analysis.As a result of regression analyzes the finding of this study indicates that aggressive strategy has been effective in productivity of the hotel enterprise. Competitive Aggressive strategy and conventional strategy has positive effect in profitability. There has been a positive correlation between aggressive strategy, conventional strategy and number of customers. Besides imitation strategy and aggressive strategy have positive effects on turnover rate. on the other hand competitive strategies effect customer satisfaction positively. Aggressive strategy has effect on loyalty and innovation. In addition to that imitation strategy has positive effects on innovation. Finally, defensive strategy is the only innovation strategy which has positive effect on general performance.Key Words: Innovation, Innovation Strategies, Tourism, Qualitative Performance, Quantitative Performance