Stakeholders' involvement in the development and implementation of tourism-related policies in a selected district municipality in the Eastern Cape

Abstract

The South African government introduced different policy initiatives to develop tourism in, the country and these tourism policies serve as guidelines for the development of the tourism sector. Municipalities are at the lowest level of Government, and it is where the actual implementation of tourism policies should be taking 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. As a result, the study aims was to examine stakeholders' involvement in the development and implementation of tourism-related policies in the O.R Tambo District Municipality (ORTDM). This study adopted a qualitative approach. The research population in this study included the individuals from the district municipality, regional and local tourism organisations, also known as tourism forums, tourism development agencies and the rural planning and economic development departments. Purposive sampling methods complemented by the snowball sampling method were two types of non-probability sampling techniques that were used in this study to identify the research sample from the research population. Consequently, fourteen (14) semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders. A thematic analysis technique was used to analyse the data. Since this study focussed on stakeholders' involvement in the development and implementation of tourism policies at the selected district municipality (ORTDM). The research findings reveal that there are challenges related to lack of stakeholder involvement, lack of political support, poor implementation, as well as underdeveloped infrastructure.