Challenges of community based tourism in Manabí – Ecuador

Abstract

Community based tourism is constitutes an alternative of local development for the communities of several countries, in the specific case of Ecuador, represents an option, endorsed within the framework legal to improve the conditions of life of the ancestral communities pertaining to the indigenous towns, farmers and afrodescendientes. For the effect one analyzed the realities that the communitarian tourism presents/displays and the obstacles that prevent their development in Ecuador, particularly in the province of Manabí, doing emphasis in obtaining an activity that is sustainable through the cultural potentialities, patrimonial and natural, prioritizing the conservation of the resources. The investigation is of descriptive type, nonexperimental; analytical-synthetic, inductive-deductive and empirical methods such as observation and analysis of documents from official sources were used. The methodology applied by Fernandez and Gereffi was used (2011) to generate the strategy of chain of value of the communitarian tourism that arises like tool propose to solve the problematic one. Also, the results of this investigation provide evidences of which, several communities in the province of Manabí which they practice communitarian tourism and all has not managed to develop their potentialities, due to the limitations exist that face. One concludes that Manabí has elements that put in value are determining to impel the communitarian tourism of sustainable form. Nevertheless, the joint of tools is necessary that promote the execution of projects oriented to dinamizar the economy. This way the changes in the development, management and handling of the communitarian tourist activities in Manabí are suggested, with the purpose of contributing to improve the present situation.