Expertise from Stilbaai applied

Mrs Anthea Rossouw from Stilbaai, also a board member of SATOUR and the Western Cape Tourism Board, has been approached by LANOK to facilitate the development of a tourism plan for yet another small country community. As was done for Elim and Genadendal, a number of workshops will be undertaken in Suurbraak for the community and tourism stakeholders to develop such a tourism plan. The first of these workshops was presented on Sat, 31 January 1998.

On this occasion Mrs Rossouw started by describing the development of Melkhoutfontein at Stilbaai since 1990. This was supplemented by a slide show and also two videos about projects undertaken in Stilbaai and Melkhoutfontein. These videos have also been shown by the SABC.

A very important aspect of the workshops is to initiate and develop community involvement in tourism. According to the new tourism legislation and structures, tourism initiatives must be developed by the community for the advantage of the community. The community must therefore take responsibility for its own development and progress. Tourism is currently the fourth largest generator of foreign income in South Africa and in the Western Cape it is only second to agriculture.