- Addressing globalisation through Local Economic Tourism Development: case study in Phalaborwa, South Africa   31 kb by    de Ridder, Elizabeth | driddere@sci.uovs.ac.za    Short Outline South Africa is not only a marganalised country in Africa, but is also a country which on the one hand have to deal with the wrongs of its apartheids-past, but also a country that has to provide its citizen with employment and development within a globalised community and tourism is looked at as panacea. Abstract The effects of globalisation leave numerous people in developing countries without employment and a competing edge in the current globalised world. South Africa is devoid of high skills-levels, cheap labour and capital; and can thus not be a driving economic force in globalisation process. Alternative plans have to be considered to establish a footing to benefit from the globalised world. The South African apartheid government focussed on economic development via import substitution and tariffs as measure to ensure employment creation. The institution of a democratic government, coupled with South Africa being a signatory to GATT and the establishment of socialist labour legislation led to dramatic economic and employment changes in South Africa, with unemployment being rife. This moved the South African Government to institute the Local Economic Development (LED) program where policy and funding are linked to job creation efforts. The Ba-Phalaborwa municipality in the Limpopo Province in South Africa received Local Economic Development (LED) funding for the development of a cultural village, museum and arts and crafts workshop. As Ba-Phalaborwa is situated next to the renowned Kruger National Park and within an area of preserved Africa culture and the well-known African bush; it is a tourism haven. As reaction to globalisation people are returning to basic family and cultural values, not only their own but with curiosity of the other. This has sparked a market opportunity for tourism development in the field of cultural and heritage tourism. Market tendencies towards African arts and crafts, coupled with tourism, is thus the core on which the community aim to create jobs and economic development in a portion of Africa which is remote and underdeveloped. This paper aims to point out how small-scale economic development efforts by the illiterate African poor can create jobs and successfully address the negative effects of globalisation. Keywords tourism, ba-phalaborwa, government Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2003: Planning in a more globalized World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper