Working towards community upliftment: A case of a tourism management service learning project

Abstract

Community engagement in Universities of Technology is evolving to become a game-changer in addressing the economic challenges of the country. Service learning (SL) as a form of community engagement is promoted at higher education, as a learning paradigm. The SL project of the Tourism Management Department at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology(CPUT), as a form of community engagement, was designed with the focus on improving business operations for small and medium tourism enterprises(SMTEs). Outcomes of the SL project were based on the development of business plans for the SMTEs for implementation. The elements of the study covered in this paper aim to investigate the benefits of SL by participating communities, to add to the body of knowledge relating to community engagement. Action research was undertaken for this study, and census sampling was adopted to collect quantitative and qualitative data from participants. Data was triangulated and 89% of SMTE respondents responded positively to the benefits of the project, commenting that it “allowed me insight from the perspective of an outsider”. In follow-up interviews, respondent’s reiterated the benefits received from the SL projects, with some highlighting challenges with project expectations versus deliverables. The authors confirm authenticity of all data given in the article and that the research is original.