INNOVATION PRACTICES IN RESTAURANT BUSINESS: A STUDY ON LOCAL FISH RESTAURANTS

Abstract

The rapid change in the current century creates an intense competitive environment, which
necessitates businesses to offer different goods and services to their customers in order to survive.
While some industries easily adapt to change, it is very difficult to catch up with change and
innovation, especially in restaurant businesses that meet similar needs and produce similar products
with their raw materials and services. In the literature rewived on the subject, it is seen that
innovation researches on food and beverage businesses generally focus on restaurants that are
located in cities and serve for twelve months. There are no studies on seasonal fish restaurants in the
summer areas. For this reason, the study is important. For this reason, the study was carried out in
order to reveal the current situation of local fish restaurants operating seasonally in the summer
resorts regarding innovation practices and to make suggestions to restaurant managers about
innovative practices based on the results obtained.
The study is carried out on seasonal local fish restaurants in Silifke and Erdemli, which are
developing small summer tourism destinations in Mersin Province on the Eastern Mediterranean
coast. In the study, the data were obtained by survey technique, which is one of the quantitative
research methods. The obtained data were evaluated by percentage frequency analysis, interpreted
with the help of tables and the results were reached. As a result of the research, businesses do not
work with professional managers, they are mostly young, high school graduates and have not
received tourism education.It has been concluded that business owners undertake managerial duties
and business managers work with fewer and unqualified personnel compared to their capacities in
their businesses.In addition, the study showed that managers made more innovations in areas such
as sinks, food and beverage, order delivery time, billing time, service time, lighting, service and
security, use of liquid gas, environmental awareness, communication systems, personnel training,
career opportunities for personnel, uniforms. It is concluded that they do not invest sufficiently in
internet use and technological innovations, and they do not have quality documents such as HACCP
22000 and ISO 9000.