Covid-19 en las dinámicas de innovación del emprendimiento de servicios turísticos de Cuenca, Ecuador

Abstract

This study explores the entrepreneurial and innovative dynamics in Cuenca (Ecuador) in the face of an unexpected agent, such as COVID-19. An exploratory survey on the number of employees before (December 2019) and during the third month of the pandemic (May 2020) is presented. It also shows the likely dynamics of soft credits that were required by the private sector but did not arrive in time. In addition, the tourism cadastral registry for 2019, 2020, and 2021 are contrasted at the general level and by each sub-sector of tourism services. Then, the dynamics of tourism entrepreneurship in the pandemic scenario are explored. A mixed approach of exploratory scope was used. The instruments used were surveys, secondary information from three years of tourism cadastral registry, and semi-structured interviews applied to eight entrepreneurs in the private sector. Finally, a significant decrease in tourism employment at the onset of the health emergency was found. Also, due to the crisis, there was a probable dynamic of proper soft credits with urgent options. The cadastral comparison shows a sharp drop and a gradualrecovery concerning the number of tourism establishments. The dynamics of tourism entrepreneurship show that the uncertainty generated responses to the pandemic crisis, some obligatory and others specific to the moment and the business climate of Cuenca, Ecuador