We have a new mayor, and thus the possibility of managing tourism in a different way. Something the previous administration didn’t have was a tourism plan, something Quito and Cuenca had, and something I always thought we needed. But not at this moment. The main plans are methodologies that were proposed decades ago in northern countries. His methods assume that the political, social and economic context in which tourism operates is stable, and medium- and long-term planning projections are made based on this stability. Even the participatory planning methods that emerged later also assume that order and social consensus can be achieved. However, the consensus oversimplifies reality, ignoring differing opinions and keeping marginalized tourist groups on the sidelines. It is said that there are as many types of tourism as there are tourists on the planet, but master plans in their desire to have straight lines into the future tend to overlook the multitude of ways to create and engage in tourism.

Guayaquil is a diverse and chaotic city located in an unstable and insecure country. Uncertainty and disorganization are our everyday life and I dare say that makes Guayaquil unique and incomparable. How can we use the old methods, brought from a place where everything works properly, to plan tourism in Guayaquil? The answer is clear: we shouldn’t. We don’t need a tourism master plan right now, but we do need planning. According to studies, the implementation of plans does not guarantee the fulfillment of goals. However, there is evidence that planning that promotes inclusive and transparent participation builds trust to work and act together. They are also a source of conflict and chaos, it is true, but conflicts and crises can be used as sources of innovation and creative diversity.

Uncertainty and disorganization are our everyday life and I dare say that makes Guayaquil unique…

Creative and responsive planning can be achieved, on the one hand, by opening space for continuous dialogue that supports the work of the City Public Tourist Company, and on the other hand, by defining action strategies on key issues. This is not new: the previous administration activated a pandemic response table that was criticized for being more informative than participatory. However, both methods are suitable for responding to the acute crisis in which the tourism sector is facing. On the one hand, strategies enable answers to short-term questions, and on the other hand, round tables enable the coordination of actions among different actors. Major development plans require time, money and stability to execute. As far as I know, at the moment the tourism sector has none of those three. In other words, we can work long-term on trying to organize tourism in a chaotic city, or now accept our differences in the way tourism is lived and practiced, and still go in the same direction. (OR)