Abstract
At the height of political turmoil and the so-called economic downgrade to ‘junk’ status by rating agencies in South Africa, the tourism and hospitality industry, through women entrepreneurship, seems to be an alternative exit the government can use to foster economic growth and curb unemployment. The paper adopts an extensive documentary review analysis to determine the challenges and opportunities for women entrepreneurs in the tourism industry in South Africa. The paper observes that women entrepreneurs in the Eastern Cape Province face a myriad of challenges emanating from low levels of education, lack of financial resources, poor information dissemination, gender inequity, limited support from stakeholders, limited technical skills and reluctance to shift from status quo. The paper concludes that, to unlock the potential of tourism and hospitality industry, women entrepreneurs need to embrace education and get trained on how to use modern technologies-which is fundamental in coping with the trends in the globalized environment. The paper recommends and empowers women to be at the forefront and become active entrepreneurs in tourism opportunities whereby stakeholder funding is the key to achieve economic growth.
Highlights
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa has been widely known as the hub of tourism and hospitality industry due to its vast tourist resort areas which saw the influx of world travelers in areas such as Cape Town’s Table Mountain, Drakensberg Mountains in the Eastern Cape as well as other beautiful sites in seaside areas such as Durban, Port Elizabeth just to mention a few
The paper sought to respond to questions such as: What is the role of women entrepreneurship in the tourism and hospitality industry? To what extent has women entrepreneurship contributed to job creation within the tourism and hospitality industry? What are the challenges facing women entrepreneurs in their quest to advance the tourism and hospitality industry? Data collected from documents was analyzed qualitatively using content analysis
Becoming innovators and risk takers among women entrepreneurs: In South Africa, women entrepreneurship is flourishing at a slower pace within the tourism and hospitality industry due to lack of innovativeness and risk-taking among women
Summary
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa has been widely known as the hub of tourism and hospitality industry due to its vast tourist resort areas which saw the influx of world travelers in areas such as Cape Town’s Table Mountain, Drakensberg Mountains in the Eastern Cape as well as other beautiful sites in seaside areas such as Durban, Port Elizabeth just to mention a few. Women entrepreneurs are useful in tapping the potential of tourism and hospitality industry their pivotal role in the social and economic well-being for communities in South Africa. A significant number of South African women entrepreneurs contribute much to the rural economy many still suffer from gender equity and lack of adequate finance to spearhead tourism activities. Despite these obstacles, many women entrepreneurs have forged an exit strategy into informal entrepreneurship in areas such as catering, fashion designing, cooking and being wedding coordinators (White, Jones, Riley & Fernandez, 2009)
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