Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
competent staff who are fully aware of and support the strategic objectives of the
organization.
It appears that, within the parks, there is still a large amount of scepticism
among managers at all levels as to the virtue of the PPP process. Many see it as a
threat to the parks and the ecosystems these parks are designed to support. If real
value is to be captured by SANParks in this process, everyone involved in the
organization must understand the process and how it is structured. This would, in
fact, secure the long-term effective management of the biodiversity.
BBBEE lessons learnt
An important lesson is to be learnt in terms of BBBEE. Whilst there is no
disagreement about the strategic importance of BBBEE and the need to trans-
form ownership structures in the tourism industry, the reality is that current
development support programmes are not well matched to the reality that
BBBEE partners face at the project level.
Taking into account South Africa's history, the matching of investors to a
typically white luxury lodge industry can be challenging. This calls for a sincere
empathy and understanding of the value of diversity in terms of the changes in
demographics and relationship of those changes to the buying behaviour of South
Africans and the world at large. For example, the social re-engineering of South
African society in the last 14 years has seen an increased affordability of luxury
products such as high-end cars and thus the benefits to the South African car
retail market can be seen. The same could probably not be said for the tourism
market because of the limited diversity of ownership within the luxury lodge
industry. The global tourist profile is also likely to change from the traditional
German and British traveller to accommodate increasing visitors from the Indian
and Chinese markets.
In order to ensure sincere empathy, it is important that there is sufficient HDI
representation in the initiation of each and every PPP entered into. The HDI
representation should not be limited to SANParks' internal PPP capacity, but also
include, for example, external legal expertise, which plays a key role in contractual
engagements. Some of the disadvantages that could occur if diversity and specifi-
cally BEE is not sincerely embraced are listed below, and not embracing such
values can put SANParks and South African Tourism at a disadvantage:
1
Product design: Operators may design products to serve only the traditional
markets they are accustomed to and can relate to.
2
Target markets and interests: Accordingly, operators may target and under-
stand certain markets and consumer behaviour that have limited market
profiles.
3
If private partners are from a homogeneous group, there is a risk that they will
only approach the members of SANParks that they are comfortable with in
order to address critical issues. Diverse views may not be seen as value-added
participation.
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