Tourism has come to be seen as a key driver for local economic development in South Africa, as it provides opportunities for pro-poor and community-based initiatives.On a global scale, the challenges of confronting poverty and unemployment 15-eg2373cl continue to dominate the development agenda.The ability of Local Economic Development (LED) to empower local people has earned favour with national governments and development theorists.The imperative facing South Africa to achieve a more equitable and sustainable economy is essentially the challenge to adopt and implement a development approach that will reduce poverty and unemployment (which are the two key objectives of LED) to the greatest extent.
It is within this context that the South African government has sought to incorporate LED into their economic development framework, predominantly through the decentralisation of development control and planning to the local government level.This study examined the contribution of guest houses to LED through procurement of locally produced products and services for their operations in the Eden district municipality.The results of the study indicates that majority of the guest houses (64.2%) are using locally produced products to a large extent with 32% using locally produced products to a little extent whilst 3.
2% not using locally produced products at all.Majority of these guest houses spend between jolly rancher filled gummies R5 000.00 and R10 000.00 per month counting 68.
8%.These results infer that guest houses are indeed making a positive contribution to LED through their usage of locally produced products.