Sustainable Cultural and Nature-Based Tourism Development in Higher Education

By:

In its striving towards economic sustainability, the South African government has earmarked tourism to become one of our leading industries. Development regarding sustainable cultural and environmental Tourism, however, is confronted with several problems that needs to be addressed by tertiary institutions in collaboration with national and international partners to share experiences in developing innovative approaches to tourism: Although Valli Moosa, The former Minister of Tourism, stated as early as 2002, on the 28 of September, that participants in the tourism industry in South Africa are “too white”, little has changed. At the moment, in 2008, the implementation of knowledge regarding tourism and tourism development still do not succeed because of a lack of innovative research, environmental and sustainable development in global education regarding tourism; and linkage projects between national and international academic institutions, industries, NGO’s, government and the community itself.

Exchange programmes between universities, the use of the internet and Community Service Learning should form part in developing innovative approaches to sustainable tourism development in the fields of cultural and environmental tourism. The need exists for a multi-disciplinary tourism programme to be implemented that involves the development of approaches that are pro-poor and transferable to other communities and countries in addressing above-mentioned challenges/problems. Such a multi-disciplinary programme has been developed by University of the Free State and is awaiting to be implemented.

Stream: Cultural Sustainability

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Matilda Sohia de Beer holds the rank of senior lecturer at the University of the Free State. She taught Afrikaans in various countries in her 23 year academic career and engaged in several study tours to the East, Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States of America regarding the subjects Afrikaans, Dutch and Tourism. During these visits she presented various papers on tourism development in South Africa. She also engaged in international research projects with Ghana and Southern University in Louisiana. She taught at a traditional black university for twelve years, accustomising herself with the cultural differences in the country of South Africa.