Local Concern for Sustainable Tourism Development: San Juan de Los Remedios, Cuba

Abstract

The growing global concern for sustainable and alternative tourism development has strengthened the scientific research and management of tourist destinations. In this context, the objective of this study is to characterize the tourism system of the city of San Juan de Los Remedios in order to understand the current problems and design sustainable solutions. It corresponds to a quali-quantitative, applied, deductive and multidisciplinary propositional research, in which the basic principles of strategic tourism planning were implemented. It presents, in a sequential and integrated way, an inventory of the local tourism system, a diagnostic study based on SWOT analysis, and a projective study for the consolidation of sustainable tourism. It concludes that there is favorable potential for urban tourism use, though this is not currently being pursued in a sustainable way; further, there is a lack of regional-territorial cohesion. This situation demands higher levels of strategic planning, as well as the creation of a destination management organization and a tourism observatory at a local-regional level. These approaches would strengthen the holistic management of the territory and lead to the creation of a competitive, multi-purpose, multi-product destination.