A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in Partial
Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Master's in
Recreation and Tourism at the Department of
Recreation and Tourism, University of Zululand, 2009. / Recreation and Tourism as a profession is new in South Africa. In the past not much concern was given to the provision and utilisation of recreation and Tourism facilities for the previously disadvantaged communities. Recreation has not been taken as a significant component of life for Blacks because of the apartheid system that existed. In the recent history of South Africa, recreation facilities were mainly made available to the White population areas, with Black areas and being neglected. As such there has been alienation between communities, tourists and hosts, as well as tourism service providers and tourism authorities. These stakeholders have not successfully tackled tourism problem, and more specifically that of tourism crime, safety and security.
The focus of this study was to investigate the tourism crime, safety and security in uMhlathuze District Municipality, with special reference to policy formulation and its practise. The main objectives of this study are the following;
• To find out whether the local community understands the
importance of tourism crime, safety and security in the study
area.
• To establish the extent to which tourists feel safe and secure in
and around the uMhlathuze District area.
• To reveal whether there are adequate policies that address
situations of tourism safety and security in the study area.
• To investigate the levels to which tourism policies are practiced
or implemented in the study area.
• To indicate the perceived management of tourism crime, safety and security in the near future for the study area.
Data was collected by means of interviews and questionnaires that were administered to 124 participants in uMhlathuze District to establish the state of tourism crime, safety and security, affecting domestic and international tourism. Data analysis was accomplished through using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) computer technique. The method used for analysing information appeared to be effective because clear outcomes of the finding were achieved.
The most important findings were that, there are criminal activities that are occurring in the study area and some of these activities are not reported and the policies and practices are not known by the members of the community and some of the tourism officials and authorities. The latter suggests that the local people should be taught about the importance of tourism and the tourist in the study area. It was further discovered that some of the crimes that takes place are done by the local people because they do not understand the importance of the tourists in the study area. The importance of safety and security is not known to them and they are not told about it. The local people needs to be told about the importance of tourism activities that are taking place in the study area and they should be encouraged to participate in the activities that can make them to see how important is the tourism and its resources. Safety and security should be applied in order to protect the study area.
It was also discovered that the Umhlathuze tourism association should be a major role in making the policy and practices to be known by everyone in the study area who can promote the safety and security of the tourists in the study
area. This is the big challenge that the local government is facing. Since local municipality is the government that is closest to the people and represents the interests of the residents, it is responsible for fulfilling the developmental role (DLG; 1998).
Therefore, it is clear that local people should be taught about the importance of tourism activities and to make the tourism policies and practices to be known by every stakeholder that is involved in promoting the safety and security in the study area. Further that the local government needs to play a leading role to ensure that they provides the training to the local community about the safety and security of the tourist in the study area even the destination itself.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uzulu/oai:uzspace.unizulu.ac.za:10530/129 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Mthembu, Nompumelelo |
| Contributors | Magi, L.M., Nzama, A.T. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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