Abstract
Even though the arts and craft industry is perceived to be a significant contributor to the socio-economic development of South Africa, the plight of immigrant owed businesses that dominate this sector has been largely neglected in policy and support initiatives over the past decades. This paper aims to contribute to the inclusion debate, by examining the factors that inhibit the start-up of African immigrant-owned craft businesses in selected craft markets in the Cape Town area. A quantitative approach to data collection and analysis was adopted with snowballing as the sampling technique. Questionnaires were administered to 122 African immigrant entrepreneurs. The quantitative data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 23). The findings indicated that limited access to bank loans, limited space, and high rental costs were the major start-up challenges. Other concerns included the relatively very short-stay permits issued by the Department of Home Affairs to immigrant entrepreneurs, the problem of complying with taxation regulations in South Africa, and the difficulty of communicating in Afrikaans and Xhosa were not perceived as start-up challenges. Recommendations were made to African immigrant entrepreneurs and selected municipal managers aimed at dealing with the start-up challenges faced by African immigrant-owned businesses
Highlights
Endowed with a rich heritage and a diversity of wellknown tourist attractions, South Africa continues to attract tourist post 1994
Cape Town has become a home to thousands of African immigrant entrepreneurs from African countries such as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Mali and Senegal who depend on the craft industry for livelihood
Even though the arts and craft industry is perceived to be a significant contributor to the socio-economic development of South Africa, the plight of immigrant owed businesses that dominate this sector has been largely neglected in policy and support initiatives over the past decades
Summary
Endowed with a rich heritage and a diversity of wellknown tourist attractions, South Africa continues to attract tourist post 1994. The tourism sector in South Africa is considered to be one of the major contributors to economic development (Rogerson & Sithole, 2001). Pushed by challenges in the country of origin and lured by opportunities in the craft markets, thousands of African immigrants have migrated to South African in recent years. Even though the arts and craft industry is perceived to be a significant contributor to the socio-economic development of South Africa, the plight of immigrant owed businesses that dominate this sector has been largely neglected in policy and support initiatives over the past decades (Hunter & Skinner, 2001; Kaiser & Associates, 2003; Kaiser & Associates, 2005; Rogerson, 2010b; Tengeh et al, 2011; Fatoki, 2014). The objective of this study was to determine the challenges that African immigrantowned craft businesses faced during start-up phase
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