The objective of the study was to analyze the principles of strategic planning in SMEs in the tourism sector located in the Special, Tourist and Cultural District of Riohacha. The text was theoretically grounded by Lopera (2014), Martínez (2013), González (2014), Armijo (2009), Sánchez (2010), Benedetti and Romero (2016), Mejía and Bolaño (2014), among others. The paradigm from which the research was developed was of a positivist nature, under the hypothetical-deductive method, descriptive and documentary type, with a field and bibliographic design. The study population consisted of hotels and restaurants registered in the Chamber of Commerce of La Guajira, and a non-probabilistic sampling was used, leaving seven hotels and eight restaurants selected. One of the main findings was that Riohacha's economic, cultural, and tourism environment is favorable for the consolidation of SMEs. Likewise, there was evidence of a poor application of the principles of strategic planning in SMEs, expressed by the lack of a human talent management system, the poor use of technological resources and the absence of a marketing plan. The main conclusions were that there is a weakness in the implementation of human talent management subsystems; little importance was given to the use of information and communication technologies to access and compete in international markets, and there was no evidence of strategic plans to position the companies in the international market
