Abstract
Tourism industry in the central Drakensberg region has enjoyed a noteworthy growth in visitor influx and earnings as well. Conversely, poverty and poor living conditions in and around villages positioned nearby to major tourist destinations in the country continues to degenerate, which ultimately raised the issue regarding the contribution of host communities in tourism decision making and informative consultation processes. Community consultation and participation in decision making processes constitute a crucial component that offers assurance to the host community that tourism benefits will be shared with the community and that their views will be considered when making tourism decisions. Thus, this paper aims at exploring the existing extent of community consultation and participation in tourism decisions making, using a case study of Umhlwazini, Bergville, KwaZulu-Natal. The study incorporates a qualitative research approach with the use of interviews, focus groups and observations. The research findings show that the informative consultation process of community in the study area has been centralised, controlled, and minimal to none regardless of the constant aspirations of the host community to participate in decision making processes. Agreements and decisions relating to tourism and the community resources are agreed upon by outsiders who have no interest of the community at heart. The study recommends a private-public partnership, financial support for small local business enterprises, policy development and amendment to promote active community participation in tourism consultation and decision-making processes. This study contributes to a broader context of community participation in decision making structures, and present scholarly significance to researchers, students and academicians, and theoretical value to government, policy makers, investors and tourism authorities.
Highlights
Tourism is progressively developing into a central economic zone within the Drakensberg region
This paper looked at examining the nature of community consultation and decision making processes; using Umhlwazini community as a case study
While several community members claimed to be aware of tourism benefits in Umhlwazini, they were quick to indicate that the community does not participate in deciding tourism matters
Summary
Tourism is progressively developing into a central economic zone within the Drakensberg region. Ngxongo (2016) in his study of community participation and tourism development in Bergville discovered that the level of participation in extremely poor this study is essential in bringing to light the existing community consultation practise in Umhlwazini area. The inability to realise the need to integrate the interests of all role players generally lead to exclusion, marginalisation, power struggle and passive participation of locals in tourism activities. In essence, this suggests that there is a communication breakdown between tourism stakeholders which results in uncertainty and volatility. The study further examines the impact of poor consultation of local communities in tourism activities
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