Analysing tourism stakeholder’s perceptions of the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Garden Route as a tourist destination.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of tourism destination attractiveness and competitiveness which have been the subject of great research interest in recent decades. The majority of studies conducted have either focussed on models of destination competitiveness or perceptions of destination attractiveness by tourists. Very few studies, if any at all. have been done on evaluating the perceptions of tourism key stakeholders in a tourism destination relating to the destination attractiveness and competitiveness. Hence, this research paper seeks to contribute to filling this shortcoming through analysing tourism stakeholder’s perceptions of the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Garden Route in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, as a tourism destination. The research used three key elements, which are considered essential for destination attractiveness. The first elements relates to safety and security, the second element relates to availability of tourism resources and tourism activities and the last element relates to availability of infrastructure and superstructures to facilitate and support tourism and tourism activities. The study adopted a quantitative research methodology and used questionnaires as a data collection instrument. The study sample constituted tourism stakeholders who are involved in the various sub-sectors of the tourism industry and they were selected based on their willingness to participate in the study after they were invited to take part. The study of the results show that there was agreement that the Garden route as a tourist destination is safe and secure and that it has a good infrastructure and superstructure but the destination was considered not to have enough tourism resources and tourism activities