“…They attribute this to a top-down planning and management approach, arguing that this model poses a main barrier to sustainable relationships among ecotourism stakeholder groups (Murphy, 1985). While an extensive body of academic literature (Gumede and Nzama, 2020;Ying and Zhou, 2007;Chili and Ngxongo, 2017;Prameka et al, 2021;Xiong et al, 2021;Nugraha, 2021) highlights the significance of local community participation in ecotourism development, numerous studies (e.g., Mustapha et al, 2013;Marzuki et al, 2012;Dogra and Gupta, 2012;Snyman, 2016;Wang et al, 2015;Wen and Ximing, 2008) found manipulative participation to be dominant in most tourist destinations, including some in South Africa. Moreover, there is a paucity of academic research in the field of sustainable ecotourism development in KwaZulu-Natal.…”