تحلیل همکاری مبتنی بر توسعه اقتصادی محلی (LED) و خدمات حمایت برای کارآفرینان نوظهور گردشگری در شهرداری جورج، استان کیپ غربی،RSA

The state of partnership and support services provided by the local municipality to the emerging tourism entrepreneurs are keys to the achievement of Local Economic Development (LED) objectives. The tourism industry is seen as one of the key economic sectors that can be used as a strategy to achieve key objectives of LED which are employment creation and poverty alleviation. The tourism industry has grown to become the world's second largest industry over the years. The aim of this study was to analyze Local Economic Development (LED) initiated partnership and support services for emerging tourism entrepreneurs in the George municipality with the objective to determine the impact of the tourism sector in contributing to the achievements of LED objectives. The study was conducted at George municipality of Western Cape Province. The study used both qualitative and quantitative methodology. The data used in the quantitative analysis was collected from 10% of the sample population. Whilst data collected through qualitative methodology was used to explain the outcome of the quantitative method. The test used in analyzing the data was a non-parametric test where the Friedman two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied. The study found that 47.5% of respondents see the overall support by the municipality as poor while 50% of the respondents receive no support from the municipality. In addition, it was found that the respondents regard the state of partnership as average. The study recommends the exposure of tourism entrepreneur's products and services through marketing and promotion as well as training in basic business management and financial management for the entrepreneurs.

Tourism-led development is clearly an emerging theme in South Africa (Rogerson, 2001), with local economic development (LED) being on the forefront of promoting tourism in disadvantaged communities (Goudie et al., 1999, Kirsten and Rogerson, 2002 and Mahony and van Zyl, 2002). However, despite the prominence accorded to tourism in South Africa's broad development vision and in many local level strategies, tourism-led LED is markedly less supported and little discussed (Rogerson, 2006). Over the last few decades several countries have looked towards tourism as a means of promoting development and economic growth. This is due to the fact that tourism has grown to become the world's second largest industry, directly accounting for 3.8% of global growth domestic product in 2009 according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC, 2010). In South Africa, the promotion of tourism has been identified as a key strategy that can lead to economic growth, community development and poverty alleviation. This appears to mean that in recent years, tourism has emerged as a significant development option in post-apartheid South Africa. According to Ashley (2006), the tourism sector is becoming increasingly important in the development of the African continent. Most governments now have included tourism in their national development strategies (Rogerson, 2001). According to this expert, many efforts are under way to increase understanding of how tourism can contribute to poverty reduction and of how to translate this understanding into concrete action. The objectives of these efforts include increased tourism arrivals and overnights, more out-of-pocket spending, and a bigger share of the tourist economy benefiting the poor (Ashley, 2006). In direct response to the economic plight of the poorest areas, the South African government now actively encourages the pursuit of local economic development through tourism and local economic development is formulated as a “pro-poor” strategy (Republic of South Africa (RSA), 2000). Related to this approach, the promotion of tourism is now widely recognized in the country as a key economic growth alternative (Rogerson, 2000).

The findings of this study infer that the LED initiated partnership and support services between the George municipality and emerging tourism entrepreneurs is not ideal for the long-term sustainability of the tourism industry. The key objectives of the LED strategy for the George municipality are to create employment and to alleviate poverty. Given the current state of the partnership, it may be assumed that a lot still needs to be done for the emerging entrepreneurs, so that their enterprises can contribute to employment creation that may lead to poverty alleviation. It may also be inferred that the current state of support needs improvement from the municipality side. These emerging entrepreneurs need more exposure of their products in the market and therefore, they need support from the municipality for marketing and promotion. Furthermore, the rating of the overall support received by these emerging entrepreneurs from the municipality is regarded as poor. This may imply that these entrepreneurs do not have confidence in the municipality and this is more likely to threaten the sustainability and the contribution that the tourism industry can make to the local economic development of the George municipality. The study recommends that the partnership between the emerging tourism entrepreneurs and the municipality should be improved. One of the strategies that can be used to effectively increase the effectiveness of the partnership may be through increased and open communication channels. This may be done by holding a meeting between the emerging tourism entrepreneurs and the municipality representatives once a term. In this way the parties will be able to understand the needs of each other. Another strategy may be to have an elected committee that represent the emerging tourism entrepreneurs who will engage with the municipality from time to time when the need arises and report back to the members. It is also recommended that, there should be increased support for the entrepreneurs in the form of marketing and promotion of their products both in the national and international markets. This may be done by selecting a few emerging tourism entrepreneurs with good products and sponsor them to attend international tourism exhibitions (indaba).It is also important that the emerging tourism entrepreneurs, through initiatives and sponsored training programs by the municipality, receive special training in basic business management and in financial management.