MTPA educates businesses and the community about tourism.

In a bid to educate the community about the importance that tourism plays socio-economically, the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA) hosted a tourism awareness day to address this.

The awareness day which was held within the Nkangala District Municipality recently, came amid an SMME tourism awareness workshop which was aimed at informing the small businesses about opportunities that are available within the tourism sector.

Speaking at the workshop MTPA’s Mr Isaac Sambo, indicated to delegates that most small businesses in the province offered bad service and as a result they did not comply with national business regulations.

He added that they also did not treat their employees good and they (small businesses) did not complement each other but they are rather competing against themselves.

Sambo also warned against price fixing among businesses.

He added that responsible tourism requires tourism enterprises in the country to meet specific sustainability criteria based on Global Fair Trade standards and locally relevant issues such as skills development, ownership and HIV/Aids Management.

“Our investigation as tourism development we discovered that most of our tourism entrepreneurs don’t look after their employees as most of employees do not last long in their businesses and that payment dates are not constant,” he said.

Sambo added that guidelines have been implemented in an effort to assist businesses to practice responsible tourism.

He said this enabled an increase and improves consumer credibility.

Following the workshop the park’s board converged to Chrisisesmeer were community members were educated about the importance of water perseveration through plays rendered by learners from school within the municipality.

“As an organisation you must have a responsible tourism policy which will as a result prohibit child labour and forced labour among other things,” Sambo concluded.