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

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.