The Development Impacts of Tourism Supply Chains: Increasing Impact on Poverty and Decreasing Our Ignorance - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 116

Table 6.3 Response rates and average scores to Leisure,Wine and
Golf supplier surveys

Leisure Wine Golf

Total questionnaires returned 265 152 136

Respondents as % of total suppliers 84.38 91.94 83.23

Percentage of questionnaires completed 68.77 83.04 79.49

Average score for suppliers a 44.72% 40.23% 46.58%

Note: the 'target' score set by Spier as desirable for suppliers was 66%.
a The average of all the questionnaires processed from suppliers to the specific Spier business unit.

Internal and external resistance or acceptance were linked. The process of
running the survey had been given to the PPT facilitator, precisely so as not to
place additional pressure on key line staff in the company. However, it was the
buyer, not the PPT facilitator, who had the relationship with the suppliers and
who was being questioned by the suppliers about the questionnaire. This meant
that within Spier more communication and staff buy-in were essential. Internal
work sessions were organized to encourage buy-in and respond to internal and
external negativity. Once suppliers and staff were comfortable that the survey
would not be used in a punitive manner, responses to the questionnaire increased.
Internal acceptance grew more rapidly once enough information had been
received and processed to start generating findings, illustrating trends and assist-
ing staff. External acceptance increased as the internal perceptions became more
positive, although pressure needed to be placed on some suppliers to complete the
questionnaires. In 2005, other parts of the Spier Group began using a similar
questionnaire. Between 2004 and 2007, questionnaires were distributed to over
500 suppliers of the Leisure, Wine and Golf businesses, with 417 correctly
completed questionnaires returned. The response rate varies from 83 per cent for
the golf business and 92 per cent for wine, as shown in Table 6.3.

Findings and implication of the supply chain assessment
The first use of the aggregated data was to generate a picture of the Spier supply
chain, its breakdown by size, location and black ownership, and inform Spier how
it could strategically alter its supply chain.
Analysis of actual spending on different suppliers from Spier Village Hotel (a
business unit within Spier Leisure) showed that a fraction of all the suppliers
account for the bulk of procurement spend. The same picture trend is also seen in
supply chains of lodges within the Timbavati reserve in Mpumulanga South
Africa, using a similar approach (unpublished author research, 2007). In the case
of the Spier Hotel, the 'largest' 20 suppliers, in terms of their Spier procurement
spend, account for more procurement spending than all the other companies
combined, as shown in Figure 6.3.
Some findings immediately challenged existing assumptions. For example,
the average size and age of most suppliers was much lower than expected. While