A Qualitative Assessment on How Cultural Villages Influence Tourism Development in South Africa
Introduction
Tourism is a major contributor in South Africa’s resources. Government is now more focusing on tourism and its attractiveness mainly lies in cultural diversity. Attractiveness included cultural villages, museums and cites of rock art. Among these, cultural villages have been part of the cultural landscape for many years and hence they have been developed to be a tourist attraction by government in recent days (South Africa’s official tourism website 2012). The villages combine many cultural factors including dress, dance, music, history, cuisine and architecture (Lubbe, 2003). To develop cultural villages as a sustainable tourism product, local government must identify the social cultural impacts. More importantly, government should investigate authenticity of the traditional cultural activities take place in the villages.
Many researchers have examined social cultural impacts of cultural tourism in different destinations with the help of tourism related models. Alhasanat (2008) cited that social cultural impacts are divided into three categories: positive consequences, negative consequences and no real social impacts. For instance, a previous study in Latvia found out the locals there noticed the positive consequences in a friendly and trusty way. In contrary, a study in Botswana found out opposite findings, which shows negative consequences such as increasing prostitution rates and extra use of alcohol by residents. Besides, a study in Hawaii found that the locals did not notice any specific impacts of tourism. However, these previous researches create some areas for improvement. First, most of them conducted research through the locals’ perception but fail to reflect the visitors’ perception on their experience in the cultural villages. Second, the results obtained from a global measure by using tourism theory models would not be always applicable when focus on one particular destination.
With this reason, the main purpose of this research
Tourism is a major contributor in South Africa’s resources. Government is now more focusing on tourism and its attractiveness mainly lies in cultural diversity. Attractiveness included cultural villages, museums and cites of rock art. Among these, cultural villages have been part of the cultural landscape for many years and hence they have been developed to be a tourist attraction by government in recent days (South Africa’s official tourism website 2012). The villages combine many cultural factors including dress, dance, music, history, cuisine and architecture (Lubbe, 2003). To develop cultural villages as a sustainable tourism product, local government must identify the social cultural impacts. More importantly, government should investigate authenticity of the traditional cultural activities take place in the villages.
Many researchers have examined social cultural impacts of cultural tourism in different destinations with the help of tourism related models. Alhasanat (2008) cited that social cultural impacts are divided into three categories: positive consequences, negative consequences and no real social impacts. For instance, a previous study in Latvia found out the locals there noticed the positive consequences in a friendly and trusty way. In contrary, a study in Botswana found out opposite findings, which shows negative consequences such as increasing prostitution rates and extra use of alcohol by residents. Besides, a study in Hawaii found that the locals did not notice any specific impacts of tourism. However, these previous researches create some areas for improvement. First, most of them conducted research through the locals’ perception but fail to reflect the visitors’ perception on their experience in the cultural villages. Second, the results obtained from a global measure by using tourism theory models would not be always applicable when focus on one particular destination.
With this reason, the main purpose of this research