Skills as Impediment to Small and Medium Tourism Enterprises (SMTEs), Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Abstract

Globally, nations depend on small businesses for their economic growth. Big businesses may well dominate the stock markets, but it is ultimately small businesses and start-ups that keep an economy moving positively. Small businesses create job opportunities and drive economic growth in smaller geographic areas. These businesses constitute more that 90 percent in both developing and developed nations, provide more than 40 percent employment and add more than 20 percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For example, the contribution of SMMEs to national economies in Germany and UK is more than 95 percent. Notwithstanding the challenges that small business are confronted with, in the context of South Africa where 90 percent of the small businesses fail in the first year of operation. In South Africa, where small businesses constitute more than 80 percent of the business sector, the growth rate is relatively low. The low growth rate can be attributed partly due to the lack of skills and lack of support from the government. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to examine the levels of education, skills and experience in SMTEs and thereby create awareness by developing guidelines for business owners to grow these enterprises. Managers often lack experience, training for management of their businesses. Furthermore, a serious impediment is the lack of management skills which results in poor management actions taken by small business owners. This article contributes to the largely under researched niche area of education and skills development within small businesses in South Africa.

Keywords

• Small Business
• Skills development
• Tourism
• Management and Training