Estudio del perfil del turista de cruceros que visita Manta, Manabí, Ecuador.

Abstract

Cruise tourism has a great impact on the tourist and economic development of the city of Manta, so it is extremely important to recognize which are the characteristics necessary to create profile of the cruise tourist in order to generate products that go according to their preferences. This research aims to design and validate a tool to reveal relevant information about the profile of the cruise tourist arriving in Manta, taking indicators such as sex, age, level of economic income, establishment of the travel group, place of origin, time of stay, among others. This research has adopted a mixed sequential design, in which documentary analysis and a quantitative component were used, and where the relevance of the tool is empirically validated. In the first phase an analysis of the evolution of the cruise industry was carried out, then in the second phase the survey design was developed with key questions, the third phase consisted of tool validation and information raising at the Manta cruise terminal (TPM).One of the most important parts of this investigation is the focus on the demand side, so it is of the utmost importance to know the needs, activities, expectations, motivations and above all how much they would be willing to spend during their stay in the city. Reason why we seek to give a solution by researching the tourist profiles that visit the city to establish objective characteristics.