The objective of these lines is to generate a proposal to join efforts in the economic reactivation of tourism, this through a comparative study of the organizations related to providing services to tourism and complementary to have diagnoses that allow decision-making for the benefit of tourist destinations. An exercise that favors the above is to question the daily life in which we live, doing this constantly allows us to reflect not only on our actions but also on their effects, this allows us to ask ourselves: When should we make decisions to stop along the way and review what we have done?, What leads us to rethink what we do on a regular basis?
Based on these questions and with the experience of two years of pandemic, this can be answered from the various activities that are developed through the interest groups involved in providing products or services, in which a myriad of strategies have been contemplated to reactivate tourism activity from national lines. regional or local.
Tourism plays a fundamental role in the different contexts that Latin American countries live thanks to the biocultural richness, this provides a diversity of destinations that promote many types of this activity from sun and beach, business, rural, architectural, archaeological, sustainable, just to mention a few; there are cities, towns, communities that are considered tourist destinations with various social problems that could have been particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this sense, an approach is left to seek an approach to the reality that companies live through comparative studies based on a diagnosis of the activity, which can provide us with valuable information to find the evolution that service providers had in their processes and products that they had to adapt in the pandemic period. Another result that can be found is the closure or creation of new establishments.
The proposal to generate diagnoses that allow us to have inputs for comparative studies, leads us to think about what will be the best methodologies for obtaining information, thinking about resource efficiency and taking into account the involvement of financial, material, technological and human talent in the understanding that the set of this allows us to efficiently put on the table the importance of having indicators that can be useful in the planning of the tourism development of cities, this will allow the generation of strategies with the integration of elements of broad impact to strengthen the offer with a vision of competitiveness to meet the demand of travelers who are increasingly prepared with very particular needs to be covered.
A diagnosis could begin through the identification of economic units, historical sites, accessibility characteristics to the destination, managers, government and interest groups, these can be taken by making a survey as an inventory taking elements of value in relation to the elements that provide support and competitiveness to the destination. The latter is made up of attractive resources, tourist plant, infrastructure and superstructure, the components as a whole may have different proposals to address them, classify them, categorize them, even typify them, depending on the contexts that the destinations have, with the previous work that has been done on this subject.
In an effort to address each of the four components that make up a series of inventories in a general way with the aim of identifying the strengths and weaknesses that you have as a tourist destination, I would like to leave some ideas taken from the classic authors of tourism planning adapted to work applied before the pandemic and post-pandemic in real contexts that have provided us with experience in the way of designing. Implement and interpret studies in tourist destinations.
A first component that serves as a basis for the potential of tourism activity in attractions and resources is the identification of the natural and cultural wealth of destinations. Based on this, the classification is considered ideal with the conditions of accessibility, infrastructure for tourism, capacity, carrying capacity or those that are required according to the interests of the study. The consideration for cultural aspects where we can find tangible and intangible manifestations in which there is a great diversity of elements that can be taken into account in this section. Undoubtedly, in this first component there are the fundamental heritage elements that can detonate the tourist activity from the characteristics of the destination, in this sense the adequate identification, categorization, typification and classification and even scheduling of activities allow to have a portfolio of cultural and natural sites of a nature or potential for tourism development.
A second component is the identification of the members of the tourist plant, this provides support to the development of the activity, configuring itself on many occasions with the companies that provide services around the resources and attractions of the locality, it is made up of elements as varied and complex as the destination itself according to the economic vocation that it has, I will leave as an example some of them such as food and beverage establishments, accommodation, leisure, sports venues and activities, fairgrounds, forums or spaces for holding events, places for recreation for leisure and free time purposes, in this section the challenge lies in the adequate identification of categorization, classifications, subclassifications that derive from the type of products, complementary services, the quality offered, capacity. On the other hand, we cannot stop thinking about the certification schemes of establishments, of people who guide the improvement of customer service processes, food hygiene, administrative management, sustainability, among some others, aimed at improving the competitiveness of businesses and the sum of efforts to that of destinations through the constant training of those involved in this.
Regarding the tourist plant, it can be considered a pillar to know the offer that we can offer as a destination for events, seasons and activities according to the vocation or the types of tourism that are in the locality, this can be contrasted with the profiles of visitors who frequent us in some localities and these allow us to identify the demand of the tourist with the habits that develop By being in our destination, allowing the obtaining of valuable information for decision-making in planning in which it is inevitable not to consider the involvement of tourism service providers, to know this information that will allow projection and evolution of the services they provide from the modification of processes, today thought of as product innovation.
A third component is tourism infrastructure, this item allows us to identify the strengths and weaknesses of land accessibility with the connectivity that the destination has and, in this issue, the identification of air routes with their capacities that contribute to mobility. At this point, the communication that must be achieved by government agencies dedicated to urban planning, public works and those related to economic development, must have transversal schemes for crossing information in order for tourism activity to be favored with local development, in this sense tourism service providers and interest groups must know the local plans for their consideration in the future. the business vision as a whole.
Finally, the fourth component is the superstructure or superstructure, which involves the identification of all the stakeholders that support the management of destinations, these can be categorized by the nature of their activity, particularly those related to tourism. A starting point for this can be all the government agencies at the different levels, in addition to these, the organizations that collaborate in the promotion of tourism such as destination marketing organizations, boards that regulate and manage venues, sites of interest, tourist attractions, which can be public or private. In addition, non-governmental organizations, which promote sustainability or care for the environment, among others, volunteering and related organizations, these can be local, regional, federal or international. Another strong interest group are the chambers and trade associations that can bring together the different businesses that are contemplated in the tourist plant.
Finally, a core issue in which a destination can have qualified people to carry out activities related to the planning, management, and execution of tourism-related activities are the educational institutions themselves that train students through their processes to prepare them for professional life. These institutions have links with the productive sector, government and trade associations with the different elements that make up the interest groups with connectivity to the tourism plant, infrastructure, tourist attractions and resources, that is, students who are trained in higher education institutions can participate in any of the elements of the components that have been addressed in this paper.The points addressed above play an important role in the proper division of categories, subcategories and classifications that allow us to have information on the great diversity of places, establishments, infrastructure and interest groups that exist in our destinations. On the other hand, we must not forget that the trends and habits of travelers have changed, which leads us to the need to identify from the comparative study whether the destination’s offer was reconfigured in the pandemic to contrast with the demand required by tourists in the reactivation of the sector. The conjunction of supply and demand, which by itself can generate a harmonious symbiosis between hosts and visitors, can generate new learnings that allow for the growth of Latin American tourist destinations
Finally, sharing experiences of this type in tourist destinations could allow learning from the experiences of other latitudes, although, with different contexts but all very similar problems since they are based on the tourism economic reactivation related to the effects left by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, This can be done through forums and even congresses where all those involved in the components can have spaces of convergence at a particular or general level where the results of the components themselves can be touched enriched with the experiences or the results with the projects and proposals for improvement that have mixed creativity and innovation in order to move forward
From the multiple trenches that are systemically harmonized in the provision of services, there are people with experience in the activities they develop, we also have committed leaderships that can allow us to seek the conjunction of companies, chambers, organizations in search of generating synergy for the complex solutions that we require in the economic reactivation, All of us involved in the tourism sector are responsible without minimizing guilds, activities where tourism gives us the opportunity to raise our hands and begin to raise our voices to seek the vitality of this noble and passionate activity for a common benefit
