Shared Growth and Tourism Small Firm Development in South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa, tourism is considered an important sector for the achievement of shared growth, which involves expanding the role of small firms, especially owned by Black South Africans. The task in this article is to review existing research on the challenges for shared growth and of government initiatives for promoting tourism small enterprises in South Africa.

Slum Tourism: State of the Art

“…However, often, as in the case of South Africa, there occurs the phenomenon of "displacement" with some of the earliest tours operated by local residents and subsequently displaced by the more professional services offered by larger tour and travel companies, many of them in external (white) ownership (Rolfes et al, 2009). Indeed, in South Africa, while some tour companies are locally based in slum tourism destinations, most large tour operators are white owned and based externally in Johannesburg, Pretoria, or Cape Town (Booyens, 2010;George & Booyens, 2014;Nemasetoni & Rogerson, 2005;Rogerson, 2008aRogerson, , 2008b. This structure and geography of control of the economy of slum tourism is critical to understand the patterns of leakages and limited local benefits that are well documented.…”

“…offerings by local entrepreneurs, which results in an oversupply of certain products (such as restaurants and bed and breakfasts), poor product quality, and lack of any effective cooperation to compete collectively by local businesses (Koens, 2012;Koens & Thomas, 2015;Rogerson, 2004aRogerson, , 2004bRogerson, , 2008aRogerson, , 2008b. Currently, the underlying structural features of slum tourism thus allow only "little victories" in terms of the local distribution of benefits in slum destinations.…”

African Tourism Geographies: Existing Paths and New Directions

“…Within Southern Africa, a strong focus of work has emerged around enhanced market access and the potential competitiveness of small, medium and micro‐enterprises, which represent at least 95 per cent of all tourism establishments in Africa (Rogerson 2005a, 2008a, 2008b; Lapeyre 2010). As Southern Africa has represented the laboratory for testing the approaches of pro‐poor tourism, it is not surprising that much recent scholarship bears the intellectual imprint of this body of thinking (Rogerson 2006a; Spenceley 2008).…”

“…Only recently has the research agenda begun to reflect a broader understanding of the production and spatial impress of key tourism products, not least the hotel (Rogerson 2010), or of issues pertaining to destination images (Donaldson & Ferreira 2009; De Jager 2010). Another useful contemporary contribution made by geographers of tourism has been towards interpreting the role of small and medium‐sized tourism enterprises and of their role in tourism‐led local economic development (Rogerson 2005a, 2008a; Booyens & Visser 2010; Rogerson & Rogerson 2010b). Key focus areas relate to factors affecting and constraining the growth of small tourism firms and their linkages to the broader regional, national and international economies.…”

Entrepreneurial behaviour, firm size and financial performance: the case of rural tourism family firms

“…Angeles Montoro-Sánchez, MasVerdu, & Ribeiro Soriano, 2008;Dewhurst & Thomas, 2003;Li, 2008) focused on investigating the influence of these businesses on destination development (e.g. Altinay & Altinay, 2006;Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000;Cushnahan, 2004) and started to increasingly discuss the relevance of entrepreneurship to tourism development and growth (Rogerson, 2008). In this vein, more qualitative research was focused on exploring the entrepreneurial mind-set of rural tourism firms (e.g.…”