Skills development in tourism: South Africa's tourism-led development strategy

Skills development for tourism has attracted only a limited scholarship in the developing world. In this paper the role of skills development in advancing South Africa's tourism-led development strategy is investigated. Skills development has a central role to play in ensuring the effective and sustainable transformation and development of the tourism industry in developing countries and, in the case of South Africa, in ensuring that poorer South Africans begin to benefit from this industry. It is argued that the current lack of an integrated and co-ordinated approach to tourism skills development seriously limits the potential of skills development to impact positively on tourism transformation and development in South Africa. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.