Tourism development is a complex process involving the coming together of domestic and international development agents and the key stakeholders groups with the state policy, planning regulations. These create a challenge to implementation of sustainable tourism development plan and make South Africa tourism to be complex. To make this argument the paper will address land policy in South Africa, environmental impacts, the roles of private sector in tourism, community involvement in tourism and final the natural resource use.
The history of land dispossession is one of the issues making tourism complex. Since many people were forcibly removed from land in order to create or expand protected wildlife areas, some of the land claims are enabling rural poor people access to land that has significant commercial potential through nature-based tourism. After 1994 south Africa gain democracy, this open a new programmes for rural people to gain land access through reconstruction and development programme (RDP). This created the tourism complexicity due of the land claiming for rural people, while those areas we already developed for economy growth and tourism attraction site such as buildings natural parks, wildlife to generate more incomes in the country.
However according to Charles and Ritchie (2006), argues that tourism should be a philosophy which involves local people. In additional tourism philosophy is a set of principles that consider the belief and values of members of a society concerning how tourism shall serve the population of a country, and acts as a guide for evaluating the utility of tourism-related activities. In regard it show that tourism in South Africa has not complied with the principle of tourism philosophy this then complicates tourism as an industry that is supposed to cater for all interest group.
Private sector involvement is other element complicating tourism industry. In very general
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