Implications of Responsible Tourism for Conservation and Development in Southern Africa - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 340

constraints to responsible tourism, which include community-level politics and
decision-making processes regarding how communal incomes are distributed.
With regard to the role of a donor agency, the two cases illustrate implications for
future interventions: that a donor agency can have a positive impact, particularly
in providing facilitators to guide development processes when the target commu-
nities have been receptive, and good working relationships have been established.
However, where community issues collide with requirements for good business
management, tourism is more difficult to implement in a commercially viable
form. The authors also stress the importance of the government in providing
adequate coordination and infrastructure to support communities' endeavours in
tourism development. Many research reports have considered the cases of the
Richtersveld and Makuleke (e.g. Boonzaier 1996a, b; Mahony and van Zyl, 2001;
Reid, 2001; Robins and van der Wall, 2008), but this is the first time people
working within an implementing agency have provided perspective of the imple-
mentation process.
Within the context of a solid policy framework that exists on responsible
tourism in South Africa, Nicole Frey and Richard George consider the market
supply and demand in the country, and ask what interventions are necessary to
encourage more responsible practices. They show that consumer trends for
responsible holidays are not as strong in South Africa as they appear to be in the
UK and the US, and the tourism industry is not translating the responsible
tourism policy into management changes (despite an appreciation of the benefits
from a marketing perspective). However, surveys of tourism enterprises in the
Western Cape province revealed that few believe that government supports
efforts by the private sector to become more responsible. Also, a lack of responsi-
ble tourism management is attributed to lethargy within the private sector,
coupled with a lack of information about what businesses could do to implement
responsible tourism. This work highlights that transforming a 'business as usual'
tourism industry into a responsible one not only requires market demand, but also
tools and mechanisms to assist the private sector in modifying their practices.
Improvements might be more forthcoming by using policy and regulatory 'sticks'
and market demand 'carrots', coupled with widely available information and
assistance for the private sector to enact corporate social responsibility. Frey and
George move the debate of the market demand for responsible tourism, which has
generally focused on developed countries (e.g. MINTEL, 2001; Tearfund, 2000
and 2001; Müller and Landes, 2000; Goodwin and Francis, 2003) towards
searching for drivers of change in tourism business. This is a critical issue for
practitioners, in how to identify triggers to motivate change in the tourism enter-
prises towards more responsible practices.
Concluding this part of the topic, Caroline Ashley and Gareth Haysom
present an encouraging analysis of tourism supply chains and their implications
for local economic development in South Africa. Spier's strategic shift to align its
business towards a more proactive and sustainable approach, provides a positive
example of what one enterprise can do when they have management support for
strategic responsible business practices. Spier calculated that if it channelled only