Public–Private Partnerships in South African National Parks: The Rationale, Benefits and Lessons Learned - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 53

Such under-funding manifests itself in infrastructural disrepair, insufficient
resources, an inability to retain competent staff, etc. Only five out of the total of 20
parks generate a surplus or break even. Faced with such statistics, 'financial self-
sufficiency' is unrealistic. The Kumleben commission of inquiry into the state of
conservation in 1988 concluded that nature conservation could never be self-
supporting, and therefore it is short-sighted and fallacious to expect a protected
area to become economically self-sufficient (Kumleben et al, 1998).
Thus the State cannot abdicate its primary obligation to fund environmental
protection and with the development of the tourism and Commercialization
Strategy, cognizance is taken of the ecological integrity of the protected areas.
SANParks' success should be measured in terms of the 'triple bottom line':
economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equity (Elkington 1997).
Adopt an increased institutional consultative approach
Whilst the process understanding was high, the maturity level of SANParks and
the private party engaged with may not have been ready for a large paradigm shift
in park management. Change management and personnel issues require consid-
erable focus: many parks hold the view that the process of project identification
and strategy adoption have not been consultative, in many cases the private sector
and SANParks showed a lack of understanding of the importance of working as
partners. This has resulted in park managers and members of SANParks' execu-
tive committee perceiving commercialization, wrongly or rightly, as a process for
personal agendas and not for the benefit of SANParks.
Selecting the wrong vendor - the relative weighting of financial model with
bid evaluation
The management of outsourced facilities exposes the operations/technical ability
of the private sector to a greater extent than that of lodge operators, as the
outsourced operations are integrated and serve the same SANParks guests. As a
result, there has been more scrutiny of product delivery and thus more replace-
ment of various private, outsourced service providers, such as the restaurant
operators in the Eastern Cape and the Kruger National Park.
These lessons led SANParks to critically analyse the vendor selection process.
While the financial criteria in PPPs are a fundamental part of the bid evaluation, it
has become clear that the emphasis on financial forecasting is taking inappropri-
ate priority relative to other key indicators such as proven operational ability,
proven marketing capability and existing client bases, all of which are more
accurate indicators of long-term sustainability than financial forecasts that can be
manipulated by bidders to win bids.
The argument that bidders are held to their forecasts has limited value when,
and if, bidders subsequently end up in technical liquidation, as this will under-
mine the perceived investment value of the destination, result in reduced
development momentum, reduced broader socioeconomic impacts (including
employment, BEE and SMME development) and may even compromise
environmental management in the project area.