(Universidad de Cuenca, 2022-01-11) Abril Calle, Paúl Damián; Naula Sigua, Freddy Benjamín
As a consequence of covid-19, many mobility restrictions and social distancing policies were
implemented. These policies affected a large part of the economy, and mainly the restaurant
sector. Thus, this study describes the current situation of restaurants, taking as a sample 38
representative restaurants of the City of Cuenca. Among the main findings, it stands out, for
example, that there were restaurants that lost up to 60% of their customers as a result of the
pandemic. As another finding, it is worth mentioning the fact that an integration to digital
platforms and greater training of human talent does not necessarily translate into better
income or more clients. For their part, the restaurants whose business lines and strategies
are mainly aimed at the upper middle strata, managed not only to stay in the market, but
also to increase their customers in some cases. In other words, in the case of these
restaurants there are high loyalty strategies. A general weakness is that there is no
restaurant that focuses on meeting international quality standards. This study, without a
doubt, provides guidelines for restaurants in general, regarding their administrative part,
strengths and weaknesses.
