Digital marketing in ecuadorian hotels: the postmodern fragmentation of smes and the need to recover an integrated vision

Abstract

Digital marketing has been associated by its authors with the seed of chaos in the narrative that underpins the brand, the country brand, and the sub-regional brand. This is because, on the one hand, it creates countless advantages for the placement of strategies, but, on the other, it faces the postmodern complexity of information overload. In this sense, a Likert scale survey and seven hypotheses were developed to measure perceptions of digital marketing in the hotel sector, as part of the Ecuadorian tourism strategy, in order to identify integrative opportunities. The sample consisted of 96 hotels statistically selected from the population of 533 Ecuadorian hotels. A final model was constructed in which one of the hypotheses was rejected, concluding that while brand advertising has a positive influence, it is not significant for the performance and sustainability of Ecuadorian tourism SMEs. However, in the other hypotheses, it was not possible to measure the need for a comprehensive policy vision that integrates the tourism narrative and avoids contradictions in the supply. There is debate about the sector's need to change its perspective on the issue and shift to a situational and, above all, structural analysis, through an integrated supply strategy.