An evaluation of community tourism organisations' role in small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME) tourism development in the eThekwini region
Authors:   , Ntlangani Bantubathi Sonnyboy 
Published: March 2022

Countries around the world benefitted from the positive spin-offs of growth in tourism. Support for small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs), township tourisms’ operating in this sector could also be enhanced for local economic growth. Tourism SMME development could contribute to the fight against poverty, unemployment and inequality that are endemic in developing countries. The research addressed the three gaps that limits local economic development in local township communities. These includes: the unrealized potential knowledge of poverty alleviation through tourism SMME development by community tourism organizations in the local communities. Community - based tourism has globally been recognized as a strategy to alleviate poverty in local communities and add to countries’ Growth Domestic Products. The obstacles to tourism SMME growth is dearth of knowledge of tourism SMMEs, that includes addressing explicitly historically disadvantaged communities in South Africa. Growth of tourism SMMEs involves issues such as community empowerment, ownership, sustainability, social justice, independence within the tourism industry. South Africa followed an apartheid ideology that divided people through legislation according to race groupings of so - called Whites, Indians, Coloureds and Blacks, with the latter being denied the power to trade. Secondly, legislations enacted during this era prohibited black business from operating in the urban areas, which were exclusively set aside as the white trading corridor. This brought structural poverty to the semi - urban and rural communities, as they were in the periphery of mainstream tourism trade that was conducted in the cities with good infrastructure. Thirdly, tourism SMMEs are currently not performing to their maximum potential and need an enabling environment to grow. Lastly, governance and management issues that provides framework for resilient tourism destinations remain under - researched in the tourism literature. The research design implemented a quantitative methodology approach engaging purposive sampling technique for data collection of Community Tourism Organizations chairpersons and both executive and non-executive CTO members. The piloting of the research procedure was statistically tested to ensure validity and reliability beforehand the start of the study. The study was conducted through a cross-sectional design and a sample size of respondents for probability sampling and participants for non-probability sampling. The study was based on CTO chairpersons, executive and nonexecutive CTO members within eThekwini municipality. Method triangulation of data findings ensured a pragmatic and perceptive comprehension of the phenomena which was examined. The descriptive statistics’ revelation showed more than seventy percent of respondents agreed that tourism SMME capacity development would have a positive impact in alleviating the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality of opportunities they face in the periphery township areas of eThekwini municipality from the tourism, and added cruise ship tourism industry. This can be successful through equal CBT multistakeholder participation and government at local municipal level taking a leading empowering, enabling role. The study discussion focused on the multistakeholder tourism SMME capacity development conceptual engagement model, aligned to the participatory pro-poor dependency framework that presented a link between CTOs tourism development and local community poverty alleviation. The conceptual model was developed as a relevant vehicle to the research. This study aims to contribute to scholarship on CTOs development of tourism SMMEs in South Africa. The study hopes to find strategies to break obstacles to increase the growth of tourism Small Medium and Micro Enterprises.It also envisaged to find out how it can facilitate CTOs tourism SMME development to alleviate poverty, unemployment and inequality of opportunity in the tourism industry. After 1994, there were and still are attempts to redress the injustices of the past by including previously disadvantaged communities to be participants in the tourism industry sector. However, certain factors still impede the growth of tourism SMMEs in these communities. Some of these factors are start-up and operational costs, difficulties in accessing markets, lack of skills and managerial expertise, and a regulatory environment that often favours established businesses. Community Tourism Organizations (CTOs) The democratic South African government adopted legislations and policies to integrate previously disadvantaged population groups through developing tourism SMMEs and introduced community tourism organizations (CTOs). It was against this background that this study also evaluated the role of CTOs in developing tourism. A quantitative approach was employed, and the data was generated by means of selfadministered questionnaires and one session of pilot investigations with chairpersons and other CTO members. An SPSS version 22 analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings highlighted tourism SMMEs’ owned by the previously disadvantaged secutor lack the necessary skills to participate effectively in this sector. As a result, economic growth and poverty alleviation in local township communities is still an ongoing struggle. There was a case for encouraging the growth of more township tourism SMMEs with wide appeal to tourists of township products, that are unique to these communities. A more proactive, structured, interactive, community engagement approach was thus recommended for the economic empowerment of marginalized communities through ownership and control of tourism projects within tourism destinations. This strategy has a potential of generating much needed revenue to alleviate poverty and unemployment. The limiting factor is CTOs inadequate capacity to develop tourism SMMEs. The study advocated for multi - stakeholder engagement comprising of government, established private sector tourism businesses, educational institutions and community - based tourism organizations. These organizations could ideally be involved in planning, monitoring and evaluating tourism initiatives in communities on agreed - on time intervals. That way, any unforeseeable impediments would have identified, reviewed and redressed as they occur. This study proposes a model based on stakeholder participatory theory meant to assist tourism policy makers at local government level. This is a paradigm shift for poverty alleviation through tourism SMME development. This is particularly important at municipal level, which is a strategic point of service delivery to local communities. This is where a need is felt on integrating tourism in the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and local economic development (LED) planning to prioritize and increase tourism SMMEs to alleviate poverty and unemployment. This is a compelling case in the historically disadvantaged townships.