Gazelle Companies in the Ecuadorian Tourism Sector in the Period 2015–2022

This article seeks to determine the relevant factors to determine whether a tourism company is high growth or not. To do this, financial ratios of the companies in this sector in the period 2015–2022, and variables specific to the company and the region where they are located, were used. A gazelle company was defined as one that initially had less than 10 employees and grew by seven employees in a period of three years. Through logit and probit regressions due to the binary dependent variable, it was determined that ROA, short- and long-term debt, region, liquidity, average collection period, size and tangibility influence the possibility of tourism companies being gazelle companies. The presence of high growth tourism companies is significant for the sector and identifying these is an important fact because it allows the governments and capital suppliers to make the appropriate decisions so that these companies grow and contribute to the Ecuadorian economy.