Logistical determinants of the sustainability management of tourist assets in Sabana Occidente, Cundinamarca

Abstract

Tourism has consolidated itself as a key driver of territorial development in growing, emerging, and frontier economies. The sector integrates—though not always in a coordinated or efficient manner— regulatory frameworks, public policies, resources from diverse sources, and heterogeneous projects for the use and management of tourist assets. These assets exhibit marked diversity and uniqueness tied to their physical contexts, and their long-life cycles suggest managing them more as inventories than as products—particularly when their creation requires substantial investment, so conservation and depreciation costs become decisive. To counter physical deterioration and gradual depreciation of these assets, as well as to safeguard the natural and cultural heritage that underpins them, it is essential to understand the pace of global environmental, cultural, and economic development and how it manifests locally. Identifying management determinants of tourist assets from a logistics perspective is therefore a crucial strategy, since local logistics specificities enable tourism’s positive impact, the sustainability of the tourism supply chain, the
preservation of cultural features, and the emergence of innovative tourism modalities in environmentally and territorially sustainable settings. This requires a multi-order analytical methodology—contextual, structural, and relational—capable of effectively guiding public action in the face of tourism’s territorial complexity. The study operationalizes this methodology using the case of the Sabana Occidente Province in the Department of Cundinamarca, Colombia (South America), to define logistics determinants specific to the management of its tourist assets.