Source: (FONTUR, 2020

Of this population, 40% is located in the Rodadero sector, 23% in the Historic Center, 11% in Minca and 7% in Pozos Colorados. On the other hand, 19% corresponds to tour operators, 44% 15% to hotels, 14% to travel agencies, 14% are tourist guides. The others are hostels (11%), restaurants (7%) and other types of 47% establishments with services complementary to tourism. It is worth mentioning that the biggest tourist companies present in the territory are hotels. International or national hotel chains that demand a greater local workforce just for their table and bar, kitchen and culinary areas (MeiselRoca & Ricciulli-Marin, 2018). This limits the options of the local population to technical levels since for the managerial positions, professionals are hired from the places where headquarters are located; they also generate capital leakage since the profits from their operation in the territory go to their headquarters. In addition to the information gathered through the survey, there are reports of the Tourism Information System of Magdalena and Santa Marta - SITUR, and the census of the National Tourism Registry, carried out by FONTUR through the Chambers of Commerce, which relates the following census by the end of 2020:

7% 2%

Unipersonal Menos de 10 Entre 11 y 50 Entre 51 y 200 Figure 3 Categorization of tourism service companies by size according to number of employees. Source: Own elaboration

Table 4 Number of national tourism registers issued and active in Santa Marta 2020. Source: (FONTUR, 2020)

TYPE OF ESTABLISHMENT

Tour operators Travel and tourism agencies Aparthotels Tourist apartments Lessors of vehicles for national and international tourism Bars and restaurants Camps Tourist farms (rural accommodation) Tourism guides Hostels Hotels Tourism representation offices Professional Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions Other types of non-permanent tourism accommodations Other types of tourism housing Restaurants Special automotive land transport Others

RECORDS ISSUED

ACTIVE RECORDS

639 231 283 98 286 44 952 718 20 7 34 9 22 7 170 69 201 158 529 211 445 237 40 13 15 6 272 191 1.872 722 90 30 34 23 65 14

Total 5.969 2.788

On the other hand, the structure of the tourism sector in the District is formed as the Figure 4 indicated considering the model of Cook et al. (2018), which was adapted to illustrate the interaction between the resources and tourist attractions of the District and the actors of the value chain. There are multiple entities, unions and associations of tourism service providers operating in the city. These mostly belong to the hotel sector, travel and tourism agencies, restaurants and businesses located in sectors Rodadero and Historical Center. However, the most representative are: COTELCO –Magdalena Chapter;ANATO –Caribbean; Colombian Association of the Gastronomic Industry –ACODRES; Merchants National Federation – FENALCO; Merchants National Union – UNDECO; Promoting Company of Rodadero – ProRodadero; Historic Center Corporation and the Santa Marta Chamber of Commerce.

Figure 4 Structure of the tourism sector in the District. Adapted from the model of Cook et al. (2018)

Figure 5. Trade union structure of tourism in the District of Santa Marta.

It should be noted that during meetings held with the representatives and managers of these entities for the diagnosis process and identification of needs and problems; informality was the factor most critical for them. According to data from CITUR, “Centro de Información Turística de Colombia”, the informality in the District of Santa Marta was 31.33% in 2017, when a verification process of tourism service providers was carried out at the national level. The report recorded a total of 683 people who operated tourist services without any accreditation or recognition. (CITUR - MinCIT, 2017) Studies of this type highlight the problems raised in the hypothesis, in which informality was postulated as one of the variables that generate the low level of tourism competitiveness and problems related to quality in the provision of services. However, this is without detracting the problems caused by the unfair competition faced daily by formalized companies and the