Tourism policy development and implementation in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa: does local stakeholder involvement count?

Abstract

Municipalities are at the lowest level of Government, and it is where the actual implementation of tourism policies takes place. District municipalities and communities globally often face poorly planned development projects resulting from inefficient and ineffective policy and planning implementation. One of the reasons for this is that there is, at times, a lack of participation by key stakeholders. The success of tourism development policies and their implementation rests on the involvement of all relevant stakeholders. This study adopted a qualitative research approach whereby purposive and snowball sampling methods were used to identify the research sample from the research population. The research population included the district municipality staff, regional and local tourism organisations, also known as tourism forums, tourism development agencies, and the rural planning and economic development departments. Consequently, fourteen (14) semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders from the district municipality, local municipalities, tourism organisations and Eastern Cape Parks Tourism Agency. A thematic analysis technique was used to analyse the data. This study focused on stakeholder involvement in the development and implementation of tourism policies in the O.R Tambo District Municipality (ORTDM). The key findings from the study revealed that there is a lack of stakeholder collaboration in development and the implementation of tourism-related policies in ORTDM.