TOURIST MANAGEMENT AS A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT WEY OF THE CHIMBORAZO HYDRAULIC SYSTEM, RIOBAMBA CANTON

Abstract

Tourism management, a tool for the development of the Chimborazo river micro-basin, located in the rural parishes of San Juan and Santiago de Calpi, Riobamba canton, is composed of a range of parameters related to tourism planning, development of tourism products, and strategies for promotion and communication, which, in being employed comprehensively and systematically, seek to achieve the sustainable development of the local tourism system. In that connection, this paper aims to analyze tourism management and sustainable development from two perspectives: the degree of importance and the current reality of each variable to have a well-founded criterion for making the right decisions for the future. This research followed the mixed paradigm, developed as a descriptive and correlational study, with a non-experimental and transectional design, where the quantitative and qualitative were integrated for the analysis and processing of information. The criteria issued by the units of analysis, tourism actors, and community tourism centers about the studied variables, allowed to theoretically base and establish a statistical relationship, which for the approach, is equivalent to a strong relationship, and for the current reality approach, it corresponds to scarce or no reaction.