Preliminary Diagnostic of the Tourist Potential of a Heritage Town in Colombia

ABSTRACT

A tourism planning process is a valuable tool that allows us to anticipate the problems that the activity generates in local destinations. Therefore, the present study is based on a proposal of the preliminary diagnosis of the tourist potential of the Colombian municipality of La Playa de Belén. This town is home to a unique lush natural park as well as an unparalleled historical center of the country. Moreover, its total tourism potential is currently little known. The results of the diagnosis showed the potential for the development of rural tourism. Tourism is a crucial economic in studied area stake based on the political perspective of the local administration. Likewise, the tourist inventory allowed the identification of thirty-two tourist resources. Most of them are cultural heritage, showing in addition to the natural wealth, and new tourist specialties could potentialize in this municipality in the Colombian northeast.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourist inventory
• political perspective
• La Playa de Belén
• natural wealth
• cultural heritage

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the municipal administration of La Playa de Belen (Colombia), the tourism coordinator of Punto de Información Turistica (PIT) of the municipality for their valuable collaboration in the development of this research. Likewise, MPC thanks the financial support of Francisco of Paula Santander Ocana University (Colombia) and JADD thanks CAPES (Brazil) for the award of the PhD scholarship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Francisco de Paula Santander Ocana University: [grant number N/A].