Participatory diagnosis of the tourism sector in managing the crisis caused by the pandemic (COVID-19)

COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the entire world into a crisis, that is causing aggressive changes in the world economic system, particularly of those immersed in tourism. This work identifies the strategies and groups of strategies that entrepreneurs and businessmen of the Manta - Ecuador tourism sector need for their businesses survival. For the information gathering, a questionnaire with open-ended questions was applied and disseminated with the help of the local government, through mailing and WhatsApp groups of registered associations. A response was obtained from 48% of the establishments registered in the city. The qualitative information collected was processed by using the Atlas Ti software, which resulted in the identification of 14 codes (strategies) that were classified into two codes groups (strategies groups). The strategies have different relationships; therefore, they are addressed to two groups, the first one implies actions that should be performed by authorities to improve the city's tourism management model and the second one, actions specific to the sector for the improvement of the health and bio-security processes in tourist establishments.