Paper Title
Management Capacity Within Small To Medium Tourism Enterprises (Smte) In The Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
Abstract
The small to medium tourism enterprises are identified as important contributors to the growth of the local and regional economies and creates much needed entrepreneurial ventures. Universally, small to medium tourism enterprises play a significant role in the tourism sector. Management of these enterprises by owners and managers seems to face challenges. The study examines the factors impacting on management capacity with specific focus on the small to medium tourism enterprises in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. A systematic random sampling technique was utilised to choose a sample of 320 business respondents from the 2012 database of the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency, comprising of formally registered small tourism businesses.A total of 310 usable questionnaires was finally obtained. In this study descriptive and inferential statistics were applied. Descriptive statistics were captured to highlight the owners and managers’ general characteristics and to consolidate their measurement scores. Utilising inferential statistics, the study undertook an investigation into relationships between demographic variables and business characteristics.The study elucidates that a significant relationship was found between business characteristics and variables in the demographic profile, namely the gender of owners/managers, educational levels, qualifications, and gross annual turnover. This research makes a contribution to the largely under-researched area of management capacity in small to medium tourism enterprises. Longitudinal studies can be undertaken to investigating the same factors which could impact on management capacity.
Keywords: Management Capacity, Small businesses, Tourism, Entrepreneurship