Nineteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

The tourism sector has shown continuous economic growth in the past decades mainly due to the improvement of the accessibility, strong awareness campaigns through conventional media and social media, lower price in airline tickets, globalization, etc. Several studies demonstrate that the increase of tourism activity has enhanced the economy of both developed and emerging destinations, when at the same time has helped to preserve the their cultural assets. However this study pretends to prove that the success of a marketing plan and ultimately the increase of visitors in a destination is highly dependent on the sense of belonging and awareness of the cultural resources of the members of the host community. Hence, this study focuses on the cultural assets of the destination both tangible and intangible, and how the awareness of such and the sense of belonging could favors both the preservation of the cultural resources and the successful of a tourism marketing plan, taking as example the destination of Manta – Ecuador. The method design for this study is mixed, with qualitative component followed by a quantitative component allowing triangulation of the results.

Presenters

Estefania Basurto
Destination Management Working Group Lead, Richardson Family SmartState Center of Economic Excellence in Tourism, University of South Carolina, South Carolina, United States

Xavier Basurto

Pedro Quijije