Benchmarking knowledge potentials of clusters: a comparative study in the tourism industry

Abstract

Clusters have been identified as influential mechanisms to drive knowledge-based innovations. Despite this acknowledgement, there have not been many attempts to evaluate their knowledge potentials. This is a pioneering study that benchmarks the knowledge potential of two tourism clusters from Finland and Turkey using the emerald model. The study benchmarks the clusters in terms of their educational attractiveness, talent attractiveness, R&D and innovation attractiveness, ownership attractiveness, environmental attractiveness, cluster attractiveness and knowledge dynamics. As a result, the underlying strengths and weaknesses of the two clusters are evaluated and concrete action plans and policy recommendations are generated for the managers of both clusters.