The findings of this study infer that the LED initiated partnership
and support services between the George municipality and emerging
tourism entrepreneurs is not ideal for the long-term sustainability of
the tourism industry. The key objectives of the LED strategy for the
George municipality are to create employment and to alleviate poverty.
Given the current state of the partnership, it may be assumed that
a lot still needs to be done for the emerging entrepreneurs, so that
their enterprises can contribute to employment creation that may
lead to poverty alleviation. It may also be inferred that the current
state of support needs improvement from the municipality side.
These emerging entrepreneurs need more exposure of their products
in the market and therefore, they need support from the municipality
for marketing and promotion. Furthermore, the rating of the overall
support received by these emerging entrepreneurs from the municipality
is regarded as poor. This may imply that these entrepreneurs
do not have confidence in the municipality and this is more likely to
threaten the sustainability and the contribution that the tourism industry
can make to the local economic development of the George
municipality. The study recommends that the partnership between
the emerging tourism entrepreneurs and the municipality should be
improved. One of the strategies that can be used to effectively increase
the effectiveness of the partnership may be through increased
and open communication channels. This may be done by holding a
meeting between the emerging tourism entrepreneurs and the municipality
representatives once a term. In this way the parties will
be able to understand the needs of each other. Another strategy
may be to have an elected committee that represent the emerging
tourism entrepreneurs who will engage with the municipality from
time to time when the need arises and report back to the members.
It is also recommended that, there should be increased support for
the entrepreneurs in the form of marketing and promotion of their
products both in the national and international markets. This may
be done by selecting a few emerging tourism entrepreneurs with
good products and sponsor them to attend international tourism exhibitions
(indaba).It is also important that the emerging tourism entrepreneurs,
through initiatives and sponsored training programs by
the municipality, receive special training in basic business management
and in financial management