Craft routes for developing craft business in South Africa : is it a good practice or limited policy option?

The establishment of themed routes by packaging together geographically disparate tourism products is an important issue in tourism planning. New interest has been raised around the potential of craft routes. This article examines the utility of craft routes for developing the craft sector. In the context of South Africa it is argued craft development is promoted through a number of existing initiatives, including the establishment of integrated craft hubs and support for attendance at trade shows. The international and South African experience highlights several promising initiatives for craft sector development and suggests the establishment of craft routes offers only a marginal policy option for growing craft sector businesses

Underdevelopment And Socialist Industrialization: The Case Of Mozambique

A Geographical Proceedings (GP) case study on Mozambique

Local economic development in sub-Saharan Africa : defining potential roles for national government

Policy debates around local economic development (LED) are mainly focussed on the role of subnational levels of government. Limited attention is given to the appropriate role of central or national government. Nevertheless, an important set of functions can be assumed by national governments in support of LED programming, not least in furnishing a coherent framework and guidelines for local planning affecting business development. The aim of this article is to offer a critical synthesis of international experience, mainly from OECD countries, concerning the roles played by national government in support of organizing LED initiatives. From international experience, twelve different roles can be discerned. In Africa, the most fundamental in energizing LED processes are improving the national business environment, reviewing national regulatory processes that impede local development initiatives, appropriate support for small business development, enhancing coordination across different government departments, and strengthening the competiveness of cities

The Uneven Geography of Tourism in South Africa

Abstract: Understanding the spatial dimensions of tourism is one of the core challenges for geographers involved in tourism studies. The aim in this paper is to pursue a geographical analysis of uneven patterns of tourism in South Africa and specifically to unpack the key trends observed in the country‟s tourism space economy. The analysis is conducted between three groupings of municipalities as destinations or tourism spaces. These three groups are demarcated as the metropolitan areas, the rural spaces of the priority district municipalities, and what is called the intermediate space of the remaining non-priority district municipalities. The findings show the dominance of South Africa‟s tourism space economy by the metropolitan areas. In addition, the analysis shows these three different tourism spaces exhibit different trajectories in terms of growth performance (numbers of trips, bednights and visitor spend), origin of visitors (domestic versus international) and purpose of travel (leisure, business, VFR and other). Interpreting the characteristics of these tourism spaces is an essential first step for improved local tourism planning

Outside the cities : tourism pathways in South Africa’s small towns and rural areas

Abstract: In South Africa the major share of tourism and its benefits flows geographically to metropolitan areas and secondary cities. Across the international experience tourism is recognised as a critical sector for economic development in small towns and rural areas. In common with the international trends tourism is increasingly identified as a potential driver for small town economic diversification as well as for promoting rural development in South Africa. Against this policy backdrop the paper examines the nature of tourism development and flows which are occurring outside of South Africa’s cities. An analysis of data extracted from the Global Insight tourism base provides a macro-view of tourism trends beyond that of South Africa’s metropolitan areas and secondary cities. It is revealed that whereas tourism destinations outside the cities account for 43.5 percent of total tourism trips these areas capture only 31 percent of total tourism spending. Tourism flows outside the cities are strongly dominated by domestic rather than international travellers. In terms of purpose of travel, visiting friends and relatives (VFR) tourism is the most important; small towns and rural areas are destinations for 50 percent of all VFR travel in South Africa. The results of this analysis have implications for tourism-led planning for local development

“You know that's a rip-off”: policies and practices surrounding micro-enterprises and poverty alleviation in South African township tourism

Supporting the development of small tourism businesses has been seen by policy-makers as a valuable means of alleviating poverty in South African townships. This perspective has been endorsed by several ‘responsible’ tourism businesses and academics. Following a review of the literature, this paper reports the findings of an empirical study that examined the practices of micro-business owners and the factors that shape their behaviour in two South African townships. In spite of significant visitor numbers, it finds that their narrow social networks and the imbalances of power between them and intermediaries such as travel agencies and tour operators prevent them from developing their businesses and sharing in the material gains that become available because of tourism. This analysis has important implications for local policy-makers and those advocating responsible tourism. For the former, it suggests a cessation of current initiatives in favour of greater regulation and alternative forms of investment. For the latter, it implies the need to reassess the utility of advocating responsible tourism to consumers in a context where they do not understand the dynamics which fashion what is on offer or the full implications of their choices

The relationship between levels of education of entrepreneurs and their business success: A study of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

The small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) sector has been widely recognized as an engine of economic growth in South Africa. The implementation of the National Small Business Strategy (NSBS) in 1995 established important objectives for the sector to address such problems as lack of access to markets and procurement, lack of access to finance and credit, low skills and education levels, lack of access to information and a shortage of effective support institutions. In response, the South African government established institutions and programmes designed to improve access to sources of finance, market opportunities, technology, training and development and education. This paper examines whether there is a relationship between the level of education of SMME owners and the growth of their businesses, using labour force and turnover as success indicators. The study adopted a mixed method approach, including questionnaire surveys, observations and face-to-face interviews. The results indicate that in the two years preceding the study there had been a relationship between the owner/manager's level of education and the business's ability to grow by increasing its labour force and annual turnover. This study, conducted in a developing economy, therefore supports the findings of similar studies in developed economies, that the level of education of an entrepreneur and the success of their business are related

Progress in Tourism Management: from the geography of tourism to geographies of tourism - A review

This Progress in Tourism Management paper seeks to review the development of geographical contributions to the study of tourism over the last decade. Given the limited number of surveys of geography published in academic journals since the 1970s, it is particularly timely to question and debate where the subject has evolved to, the current debates and issues facing those who work within the subject and where the subject will evolve in the next five years. The paper is structured around a number of distinct themes to emerge from the research activity of geographers, which is deliberately selective in its coverage due to the constraints of space, but focuses on: explaining spatialities; tourism planning and places; development and its discontents; tourism as an 'applied' area of research, and future prospects

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters