Business dynamics in touristic and accommodation fields towards the massive hiring of Venezuelan immigrants and the general perceptions of these types of companies: a study in “La Mariscal” área

Abstract

The debate about migration and human mobilityhas been generalized in almost all spheres throughouthistory, even they were not completely aware and willing to leave their countries or receive foreigners as well. However, during the last years the Venezuelan crisis has forced their peoples to leave the country and look for new places to live. Several countries have hosted millions of those immigrants; countries the world. Latin America and the Caribbean have experienced this phenomenon throughout theirsuch as Colombia., Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Unfortunately, several xenophobic breakouts have been witnessed already. Ecuador receives thousands of Venezuelan immigrants that have settled in some of its cities. Our country is considered as atransit country as well, being part of the route to southern destinies. The presence of this increased amount of people has affected different fields, and tourismand accommodationis one of these. Itis sad to mention that several companies have decided to hire immigrants, some of them do not even have a legal status which promotesunequal and unfair treatment. Some of them pay less than the minimum wage, others have also physically abused their workers, among others. There are several consequences in terms of xenophobia however the affections to the image and reputation of the touristic destiny are still unknown. One of the aimsof this research is toidentify the perception that touristic business owners that operate in Quito have towards Venezuelan immigrants; as well as the opinions of people whose area of incidence is La Mariscal (Touristic Special Area) of what they think about the image of this place. We used a descriptive and quantitative focus which was based on surveys that were applied to the owners of business that are part of the registry of the Ministry of Tourism that are located in the study area. The citizens that were present were asked as well. The results were analyzed using R studio software. We could conclude that in Europe there are xenophobic breakouts that respond to race and work inequalities while in Quito owners see immigration as an opportunity to lower costs and therefore make more money. The hiring of Venezuelan immigrants is also detrimental to the image of the touristic destiny since people have xenophobic attitudes towards this population.