Cultural tourism in Durban, a mechanism to encourage the development of local communities

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on possible ways of creating employment for local people through cultural tourism. One of the major problems experienced in KwaZulu-Natal is the high rate of unemployment. The dissertation focuses on the potential of cultural tourism as both a drawcard for visitors to South Africa as well as a means to alleviate poverty in the province. Since the concept of cultural tourism is fairly new to South Africa, the various concepts linked to the topic are outlined and defined at the outset before an hypothesis is stated. The dissertation investigates the successes generated by cultural tourism in other developing parts of the world before attempting to apply it to case studies in the Durban area. This allows for comparisons and makes one attentive to lessons to be learned when developing cultural tourism attractions in Durban. The advantages and disadvantages of the external case studies are outlined and recommendations for the development of local case studies are discussed. Each of the Durban case studies is introduced and a detailed analyses of its potential for cultural tourism is provided. Part of the contribution towards the potential that these case studies have for cultural tourism development is the fact that South Africa has a strong political history. It was therefore apt to include an account of SA’s political progress in the study. The dissertation then proceeds onto discussing findings after interviews with relevant parties aligned to the chosen case studies were conducted. This allowed for suggestions and recommendations on how to proceed towards achieving well developed community driven, cultural tourism projects.