La planificación estratégica y las habilidades gerenciales, y su impacto en la competitividad de los emprendimientos del sector turístico en el cantón La Troncal.

Abstract

Entrepreneurial activity is essential for the economy of a country, region, province, city, or canton. It is worth mentioning that in terms of tourism, La Troncal is varied because one can find spas, hostels, natural places, typical gastronomy, and agrotourism. This research analyzes strategic planning and management skills and their impact on the competitiveness of tourism sector enterprises in La Troncal canton. For the theoretical explanation of this research, some authors such as Aragón and Rubio (2009), Araujo et al. (2006), Báez (2007), Cairo (2003), Cano and Olivera (2008), D'alessio Ipinza (2008), Estrada et al., (2009), Ferrer and Demenza (2006), Guerrero (1995), Laborca (2007), Pera (1998), and Poter (1990), among others, are cited as support. This research employed the qualitative and quantitative methodology of a non-experimental, descriptive, explanatory, and correlational type. The population selected for this study was 27 managers, administrators, and people in charge of tourism sector enterprises in La Troncal canton to whom a survey-type instrument was applied. After that, the validity test used Cronbach's Alpha with reliability of 0.963. In the same way, for the quantitative results, frequency tables were presented with the coefficients of the two models and the table of correlations between the three variables. To conclude, for a company to be highly competitive, it needs to have strategic planning. The people who lead these tourism businesses should have a solid knowledge base on management skills. It is recommended that in future research, friendly strategic planning models be developed for small businesses and that the personnel is self-taught and have the freedom to contribute with ideas and forms of training to discover how to enhance the managerial skills of the various areas of a company.