CONDITIONS OF COMPETITIVENESS OF SANTA MARTA (COLOMBIA) AS A TOURIST DESTINATION: PERCEPTION OF ITS MAIN STAKEHOLDERS

Abstract

This paper presents the tourism stakeholders perception about the competitiveness of Santa Marta (Colombia) like tourist destination, particularly in eight pillars: Infrastructure, Promotion, Institutionality and Governance, Planning, Competitiveness, Connectivity, Tourism Observatory and Education and Culture. The research has quantitative focus with descriptive scope, non-experimental design and a non-probabilistic sampling. The investigation got as results that 89.2% of the surveyed stakeholders affirm that Santa Marta need the construction of a touristic dock and 100% are agree with the pertinence of ‘Colegios Amigos del Turismo’ program. Others results indicate that the most of consulted stakeholders consider moderately efficient the air, land and sea connectivity of Santa Marta, with percent between 48.6% and 70.2%; while the 2.7% of them think that land connectivity its inefficient.