Wilderness Safaris, Pro-Poor Tourism Pilots in Southern Africa: Wilderness Safaris, Rocktail Bay Lodge

Wilderness Safaris, Rocktail Bay Lodge

Update on PPT linkages at Rocktail Bay, April 2005
WILDERNESS SAFARI's Rocktail Bay: PPT facilitation continues to assist WS in strengthening the existing partnership with Mqobela Community while helping to develop a new partnership with the Mpukane community around a new diving lodge near Rocktail. Approval of the new lodge by government has been slow and the EIA process is now underway, but meanwhile short term employment opportunities, such as clearing the airstrip, have been created. A new community tour for Rocktail Bay guests is going well.
Wilderness Safaris is currently launching a new brand which highlights its role in contributing to local people's lives. With the launch of this, PPT facilitation is concluding with training for staff and community partners in destinations on putting partnerships into practice. Training is being finalised and initiated in April 2005, with likely continuation beyond the duration of the pilots.

Rocktail Bay Lodge is an up-market coastal destination in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Rocktail Bay offers 10 tree lodges and a family unit with space for 20 to 24 guests. The lodge attracts mainly a middle class clientele from Europe and the US. Occupancy has increased steadily in the last few years to reach approximately 70%, and this coupled with low seasonality makes the lodge one of the most successful of Wilderness Safaris’ operations. At the moment the lodge employs approximately 45 employees of which 32 originate from the local area. The main products offered are photographic safaris, diving and coastal holidays.

The lodge is co-owned by a commercial bank, the conservation agency, and the neighbouring community, the Mqobela, while it is operated mainly by Wilderness Safaris, with the conservation agency and the community as partners. Wilderness Safaris is a large, up-market and fast expanding safari/lodge operator that currently operates 45 camps/lodges in seven Southern African countries. In the past few years the company has received a host of awards for its ‘responsible tourism’ initiatives and policies. These included the British Airways ‘Tourism for Tomorrow Awards’, the South African Fedhasa Imvelo Awards in 2002 for ‘Best Community Involvement Programme’, and the Legacy Award in 2003.

The community partner at Rocktail Bay is the Mqobela community, which is situated on communal land in a traditional authority ward administered by the Tembe Tribal Authority. The Mqobela ward community is comprised of 284 homesteads with a population of approximately 1,500. Currently, the Mqobela community has limited tourist attractions and facilities, but they can offer choir groups and informal dance groups, cuisine, home-based craft production, and a rich cultural history.

There are already a number of linkages between Wilderness Safaris and local stakeholders (in addition to the tripartite ownership). These include a local taxi operator contracted to ferry people to and from work; casual labour for routine maintenance work; exhibition and sale of local arts at the craft shop; organisation of community tours and hippo-viewing trips where guests pay into a community fund; and fishing guides recently introduced. Approximately 2% of Mqobela (32 individuals) are directly employed by Rocktail Bay Lodge. These salaries support 31 homesteads and approximately 169 people indirectly. Communal income is generated through the lodge owning company (of which the community owns a 14.5% share) and the lodge managing company (where the community owns a 12.5% share). A Policing Forum consisting of eight community members is supported by Wilderness Safaris. The company and the community work together on mitigating environmental impacts and sharing resources by having established a beach cleaning initiative and providing beach access to local villagers. Wilderness Safaris is involved in capacity and training initiatives which include in-house training and staff being trained up at other Wilderness camps; a PPT lecture series; and Theta training for new lodge development. The community participates in decision-making through a trust that elects two members onto the development company as directors.

Wilderness Safaris plans to expand its operation in the coming years, particularly at a new dive site near Rocktail Bay, new sites in the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park, and other parts of South Africa. The considerable success of Rocktail Bay (low seasonality and high occupancy) is linked to its extensive community development programme, tri-partite partnership model, and the widespread recognition these achieved. Thus the approach to community involvement will be replicated at the new sites in the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park, with the assistance of PPT.

PPT linkages at the Rocktail Bay site:
PPT facilitation in 2003 was focused on five main priority areas:
1) Strengthening the partnership between Wilderness Safaris and the Mqobela Community by assisting with the restructuring of the Mqobela Trust, to enable it to deliver community benefits and engage in product development more effectively.
2) Incorporating PPT considerations into the expansion plans at sites around Rocktail, and starting to build a partnership and economic linkages with the neighbouring Mpukane community for the proposed new lodge to be constructed in 2004. The development will involve new community shareholding and partnership arrangements.
3) Assisting Wilderness Safaris to extend staff training programmes and employment opportunities for local residents.
4) Exploring new enterprise opportunities that would either supply inputs to the lodge, such as vegetables, animal husbandry products, fish and ocean fare, or provide services and attractions for tourists that build on local skills and culture, and can be incorporated into the lodge's programmes.
5) Assisting the communities and the company to express their priorities to government authorities who control the tourism development plans in the area, and helping to deal with some of the problems arising locally.

Beyond the pilot site, further expansion is also anticipated at Kosi Bay where Wilderness Safaris has tendered for three sites north of Rocktail Bay. It is expected that this will create 130 new permanent jobs, plus a range of tourism related enterprises, and thus further increase the potential for PPT linkages.

Click here for the summary scoping report