Online tourist information on the official websites of the provincial capitals of Ecuador

Abstract

The objective of this study was to describe the online tourist information that is presented on the official websites of the province capitals of Ecuador. The research was of a qualitative type with a descriptive scope, composed of two phases. In the first part, the existence of online tourist information was verified in the web portals endorsed and administered by the Decentralized Autonomous Governments (GAD) of each of the destinations that were studied through their URL links. In the second phase, the evaluation of tourist information was carried out consideringsix parameters: home page (disposition of tourist information), languages, content, social networks, mobile app and geolocation of tourist offer. It was possible to show that most of the provincial capital GADdo not have an exclusive web page for tourist information, finding the information only in links that are found within the pages of the municipalities which have a general use for all the procedures that performs the sectional government. In addition, most of the tourist information is only found in a single language, added to the above, the destinations do not have mobile applications that have information onthe tourist offer.