Introduction
This project responds to a planned teamwork, with the determined participation of representatives of sectors of the Municipality of Chone, Parish Councils, Ministry of Tourism, Provincial Chamber of Tourism of Manabí, Tourist Guilds and Hoteliers of the locality, NGOs, universities, neighboring municipalities, etc., under the coordination of the Department of Tourism, Environment and International Relations of the Municipality of Chone which will serve to consolidate the project of the Comprehensive Cantonal Strategic Plan to develop Chone for tourism until 2020.
This Strategic Plan for Sustainable and Sustainable Tourism projected until 2020, which is being proposed does not in any way represent a guarantee to turn Chone into the Canton and city that we dream of as a Tourist destination. Therefore, it is necessary that this be assumed, constantly reviewed by the actors of the different local axes and adapted according to the circumstances and above all things accepted by the local population, in such a way that it empowers them, even when their participation in the sustainable development of tourism is not direct, and applying the plan.
Development
In Ecuador, tourist activity is among the top five items for foreign exchange income that sustains and energizes the national economy, showing a sustained growth rate of around 7% per year and resulting in at least one tenth of every dollar circulating in the market is linked to tourism spending. The comparative advantages of Ecuador compared to the rest of the countries in the region, in terms of natural and cultural resources per unit area, determine a tourist potential and a social opportunity to generate well-being from an inclusive and supportive tourism development model.
Manabí, as the coastal province of the country with the greatest comparative advantages for locally-based tourism development, shows weaknesses in terms of structuring a competitive product offering. This occurs as a consequence of the interaction of several factors that limit the tourism development of the territory and that have been facing strongly through strategies and direct actions from the Provincial Directorate of Tourism of Manabí, the Provincial Council of Manabí, several Municipal Governments and international cooperation entities.
The territory assigned to this term encompasses the geopolitical jurisdiction of the Chone canton, which with more than 3,500 square kilometers constitutes not only the largest canton in Manabí but also exceeds provinces such as Tungurahua in size.
We also have the so-called Chone area of influence or Chonera region within a radius of approximately 50 km. From its limits that encompasses the entire north of Manabí, Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, South of Esmeraldas, and to a lesser degree Buena Fe in the province de los Ríos and El Empalme in the province of Guayas.
The most remote historical antecedents of this region exceed 7000 years old with vestiges of several pre-Columbian cultures of the oldest in America.
The arrival of Europeans occurred in the 15th and 18th centuries through the port of Bahía de Caraquez, promoted by the economic boom in the region at that time.
At the end of the 19th century in the territory of Chone, the fine aroma cocoa that makes Ecuador world famous was produced and exported.
On May 5, 1895, after the combat of the Yellows in Tosagua, the liberal proclamation was signed in Chone that declared General Eloy Alfaro (Hero of the Homeland) for the first time as supreme chief.
In 1939 the feat of several men known as the Raidistas took place, who ventured through the wild mountains of northern Manabí in order to unite the province with the capital of Ecuador.
Chone is a word from disappeared languages used by primitive cultures, and that historians decipher the meaning of "burning earth."
The so-called Chonera area is based on a connection that occurs from the city of Chone with the aforementioned sites due to strong migratory currents of Chonera pioneers who in a systematic process of colonization took possession of large sectors of the territory, even reaching leadership levels..
The factors that favored this process are the hydrographic basins, the Costanera mountain range, the Choco-Manabí tropical humid ecosystem, the homogeneous origin of its population, the location at the meeting point of strategic road axes, among others.
Since its formation, the city of Chone has been an important sector of the province of Manabí with abundant natural, cultural and landscape resources, articulators of the economy of circulating agriculture and characterized by a great productive capacity.
Chone as well as the province of Manabí is located in a privileged way between large natural areas, to the west the Pacific Ocean and the Galapagos Islands, to the east the Andes mountain range, to the north tropical humid ecosystems and the warm marine current of El Niño. and to the south, dry tropical ecosystems and the cold Humboldt current, all below the equinoctial line.
The tourist potential will be strengthened with the possibility of reactivating viable places in relation to ecotourism, such as cultural tourism; adventure tourism (excursions); sports; rural tourism (haciendas), ecotourism, ecological production centers, protected areas, scientific research centers, social, community and environmental volunteering, in addition to promoting investment with community participation given the immense rural population.
Therefore, the Tourism Development Plan of the Territory becomes a planning tool that determines and guides the essential and urgent local and regional tourism development.
Economically the main productive activities of the canton are agriculture (cocoa, banana, cassava, coffee, peanuts, corn, citrus fruits, passion fruit), livestock (cattle, equine, swine, poultry, fish), commerce, services (passenger transport, transportation cargo, education, regional public services).
The canton is crossed by 2 important road axes: the Quito-Manta and Quito-Pedernales roads, which make it a place of passage that connects Quito and the main sun and beach destinations of Ecuador, it is estimated at more than 30,000 tourists who transit through these routes on national holidays, it is also to be considered that there are more than 100 000 choneros living outside the canton. Less than 100 km. This Manta, Ecuador's main seaport and one of the country's main airports.
Conclusions
It is strictly necessary to carry out the elaboration of a strategic plan of tourist development of the Chone territory that sustains and is sustained in products with regional territorial identity.
Chone being the canton with the largest territorial extension of Manabí, and that also due to its elongated shape includes limits with the northern cantons of Manabí and even with neighboring provinces, covering like no other the possibility of developing tourism products, offer and even regional tourist destinations, which is strengthened by the strategic location of the city at a point of crossroads that links the main tourist resources of the provinces of Santa Elena, Manabí and south of Esmeraldas with the city of Quito in the round trip., which in addition to being the Ecuadorian capital, is also the main center of receptive tourism and the main national tourist distributor, and from where to connect with the main destinations of the aforementioned provinces it is essential to pass through the territory of the Chone canton.
It is important to highlight that the Tourism Development Plan will be a technical instrument that will promote tourist, environmental and cultural activity, under the concept of territorial integration, it will be consolidated following the process applied by the Ministry of Tourism; in other words, with the direct participation of tourism stakeholders, who are called upon to set specific goals and objectives based on execution.
The orderly development of a region depends on the capacity it has to define its competitiveness strategy.
While it is true that competitiveness requires long-term thinking that is expressed in successful countries and regions as common purposes, it is also true that it implies the construction of a strategic plan that enables harmonious progress in a given canton.
Ecuador already has several projects aimed at promoting ecological tourism on a sustained basis, but none aimed at promoting tourism in the canton Chone. Which reduces the opportunity to improve the percentage of tourism beneficiaries and tourists to be captured within that square.
The importance of having this plan is notorious for the Chone canton, since it will be possible to highlight the regional vision that includes various attractions that must be converted into bicantonal and regional tourist products, due to the extensive territory of this canton and its conformation that allows it to limit with the Quinindé and La Concordia cantons of the Esmeraldas province, Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas of the province of the same name and several cantons of the north of Manabí, which will allow to design and apply the appropriate strategies and project the Chone canton as a tourist plaza, needing an appropriate orientation to know the destination to which we will direct both the private and community sectors.
The Municipal Government of the Chone canton, through the Department of Tourism and Environment, is interested in carrying out the Cantonal Tourism Development Plan (2011-2020), which will serve to encourage the creation of products, offers and local tourist destinations, bicantonal and regional and as one of the most important things is that at the time of the application of this plan it would be possible to generate the dynamization of the local economy thus allowing the entry of economic and human resources from the visit of local, national and foreigners, as well as projects and social enterprises.
Bibliography
1. Aguirre Oscar, Strategic Tourism Planning, 2010.
2. Coppiano Enrique, Historia de Chone, 2010.
3. Paola Gastessi, La Segua Wetland Management Plan. 1999 Manabi Ecuador.
4. Joseph Ballart H.: Cultural Heritage Management, editorial Ariel patrimonio Year 2001 Spain Barcelona.
5. Jordi Juan, Tresserras: Cultural Heritage Management, editorial Ariel patrimonio Year 2001 Spain Barcelona.
6. Llouis Bonet, Xavier: Management of Cultural Projects.
7. Rogelio Rocha C.: Research Methodology applied to Tourism.
8. Roberto C Boullon: Planning of the Tourist Study, editorial trillas Third edition April 1999.
