Identificación de la percepción del turista hacia el destino Cuenca-Ecuador, mediante la “Netnografía”

This investigation analyzes the necessity and convenience of demonstrating that “Netnography” is a method that contributes to the development of tourism, because it helps to determine the tastes and preferences in relation to the resources/attractions existing in the locality and the level of satisfaction of the consumer ́s needs. The aim is to identify perceptions of tourists for the destiny Cuenca-Ecuador, the methodology selected for the study was the proposed by Vargas (2011), who stablishes as steps of the procedure: the definition of the topic to investing, the virtual communities where the data will be extracted, and finally the interpretation of the information. The research integrated comments taken from the Facebook ́s page Visit Cuenca and the tourist forum of the Cuenca ́s city in Trip Advisor. The results show the perception of the tourists in relation to the attributes offered by the city, the existence of a greater influx of Ecuadorian tourism into the city and the composition by origin foreign segments, including tourists from Latin America and the Caribbean. It is observed that the most important attraction in order of preference was its architectural area and the natural attractions of the environment, findings that can be taken into account for the design of future marketing strategies for the destination.