Missing the Development Target: Provincial Government Support to Tourism Entrepreneurs in the Western Cape

'Lemay Quesada?s study represents a fresh approach to evaluating the extent to which government support is benefiting small black-owned tourism businesses. It contains useful insights and recommendations that would be of value to the government in South Africa and throughout the developing world.'Mark Boekstein, Department of Geography at the University of the Western Cape. Accelerating the development of black- owned SMMEs constitutes an essential step to transform the economy of post apartheid South Africa. In the past decade, tourism has emerged as the country?s fastest growing sector, providing many opportunities for new entrants. Because this sector has historically been dominated by white entrepreneurs, a wide range of provincial and national government policies have been introduced to increase the participation of previously disadvantaged individuals.This study investigates the effectiveness of government programmes to support tourism SMMEs in the Western Cape province.While the policies appear to be well conceived,this study explores the problems and implementation challenges from the perspectives of the business owners.

Lemay Llorente Quesada lectures Finance and Entrepreneurship at the University of the Western Cape where she earned her Masters. She researches on SMMEs in South Africa. The author has recently published on The Journal of Applied Business Research.Currently, she is studying towards completing her PHD with a focus on family businesses.