Percepción turística de las comunidades locales del cantón Puerto López, Manabí Ecuador.

Abstract

Tourism is an activity of great connotation worldwide and which in turn brings with it many benefits for different tourist destinations. The residents play an important role in the development of the tourist activity since they are in constant contact with the tourist and because they are the genuine owners of the territory. The purpose of this study is to diagnose the tourist perception of the local communities of the Puerto López canton in order to contribute to the establishment of criteria in decision-making towards the tourist development of the territory. The methodology is focused on determining the necessary indicators to study the perceptions of residents regarding tourism in their locality and is structured in seven steps: Characterization of the place, identification of indicators, design of instruments, determination of the sample, compilation information, data processing and writing results. The research is descriptive, methods, techniques and tools were used such as: bibliographic review and official documents, synthetic-analytical method, surveys and interviews, descriptive statistics, matrices, and the SPSS and Excel programs were used for data processing. The results reveal that tourism in this community generates great benefits such as: employment, improving infrastructure, promoting culture, customs, and traditions, among others. However, there are neutral opinions regarding the administration, the participation of the communities, and the destination of money from tourism. These aspects must be worked on, in order to further strengthen this activity.