The importance of management disciplines and entrepreneurial flair to SMME tourism service providers.
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Date
2012
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Abstract
This quantitative study focused on the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) based Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs), from a tourism perspective, to determine their overall understanding of complexities involved in operating a tourism business; their level of entrepreneurship to drive tourism and economic growth; their ability to acquire and implement fundamental management principles to ensure sustainability of the tourism business and their contribution to job creation. Given the commitment by the South African government to promote small business development, it became imperative to ascertain whether tourism business within the KZN province is driven by an entrepreneurial society which places importance on management principles to realise long-term, tourism and economic growth. A quantitative approach in the form of questionnaires was adopted for this study. A simple random probability sampling approach was implemented. Out of 100 questionnaires distributed, only 35 were suitable for analysis. Overall, the findings of the study revealed that the KZN SMME tourism service providers are characterised by individuals who exhibit high levels of entrepreneurship and who subscribe to effective management principles. Although the findings of the study revealed huge potential for tourism and economic growth through the SMME business activities, it is recommended that a similar study should be conducted by an individual who is independent of Tourism KwaZulu-Natal to establish whether similar results will be obtained. A future study could incorporate a broader scale of SMMEs beyond Durban and surrounding areas and follow a qualitative approach to achieve a maximum response rate.
Description
Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.
Keywords
Small business--Management., Tourism--Management., Entrepreneurship., Theses--Business administration.