Tourism is regarded as a key sector through which to bring about sustainable development in rural areas. A suitable product offering should be identified that matches the rural area's unique resources with market demand. The Karoo Rural Node in South Africa's unique landscape coupled with hosting astronomy sites of global importance presents the ideal opportunity to develop Astro Tourism as niche offering. This paper explores the region's state of readiness to harness this potential through describing existing visitors' travel behaviour, experiences and expectations, alongside views from supply side stakeholders. Mixed methodology presents evaluations at the hand of an Importance Performance and a SOAR Analysis depicting the state of readiness. The paper describes how a unique experience such as Astro Tourism can be regarded as viable mechanism to bring about sustainable development in a rural context.

Wildlife tourism attracts substantial numbers of tourists worldwide with Africa as the major wildlife viewing destination earning the bulk of its tourism revenue from such tourism. Iconic animals, such as the rhino, are major attractions for tourists to South Africa who holds approximately 80% of the World's rhino population. However the rapid increase in rhino poaching activities has reached a crisis point and should the rate of poaching continue to increase Africa's remaining rhino population will become extinct in the wild within 20 years. How this affects tourists and tourism is still largely unknown. This study shows evidence that rhino poaching and anti-poaching measures do impact tourism in the short term and could affect future visitation to Parks.

This article investigates the status quo of information management education within South African universities. This article is a survey of the literature investigating this issue. The terms information and management are defined and a definition of the term information management is presented. The emergence of information management as a field of study is discussed as largely a response to the information age and the enormous amount of information which has resulted from it. Furthermore the current schools of thought in the field of information are mentioned as well as the paradigm underlying information management. The movement towards a new paradigm is debated. The contexts and levels (i.e. personal, organizationai and strategic levels) of information management as manifested in the literature are discussed and suggestions are made with regard to which levels of information management should be taught at undergraduate level and which at postgraduate level. The trends in information management education, as evident from the literature, are pointed out, which forms the background against which the problem of information management education is addressed, and focusses on the issue of multidisciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity, with the emphasis on a wider or more holistic perspective of information management education.In hierdie artikel word 'n ondersoek na die stand van inligtingbestuuronderrig in Suid-Afrikaanse universiteite geloods en 'n oorsig van die literatuur wat hierdie knelpunt ondersoek, word gegee. Die begrippe inligting en bestuur word omskryf en 'n definisie van die begrip inligtingbestWAr word gegee. Die opkoms van inligtingbestuur as 'n studieveld word bespreek, grotendeels as 'n respons op die inligtingsera en die geweldige hoeveelheid inligting wat daaruit voortgevloei het. Verder word die huidige denkskole in die inligtingsveld aangeraak asook die paradigma onderliggend aan inligtingbestuur. Die beweging na 'n nuwe paradigma word gedebatteer. Die kontekste en vlakke (d.i. persoonlike, organisatoriese en strategiese vlakke) van inligtingbestuur soos gemanifesteer in die literatuur word bespreek en voorstelle word gemaak met be trekking tot welke vlak van inligtingbestuur op voorgraadse vlak en welke vlak van inligtingbestuur op nagraadse vlak aangebied moet word. Die tendense in inligtingbestuuronderrig, soos wat dit uit die literatuur blyk, word uitgewys. Dit vorm die agtergrond waarteen die probleem van inligtingbestuuronderrig aangespreek word en fokus ook op die knelpunt van multidisiplinariteit teenoor interdisiplinariteit, met die klem op 'n wyer of meer holistiese perspektief van inligtingbestuuronderrig. Statement of the problemThis article forms part of the background against which research was carried out on the current state of education in information management at a macro-level in South African universities (Fairer-Wessels 1995). This article investigates the concept of information management from a theoretical point of view, the emergence of information management as a field...

The concept of knowledge management is becoming increasingly prevalent in academic and vocational literature. The objective of this article is to review the conceptual foundations of knowledge management starting with a conceptual clarification of knowledge relative to data and information. The characteristics in terms of forms, levels and categories of knowledge are discussed. Against this background a definition of knowledge management is sought which is compared with information management. The increasing emphasis placed on knowledge in an organisational context has given rise to a new manifestation of capital which occurs as human or structural intellectual capital. Therefore, the relation of knowledge management to corporate memory as well as the learning organisation is indicated. There are various ways in which knowledge management can be interpreted, the first being analogy; three of which occurring frequently in discussions of knowledge management (biological, economical and their convergence in bionomics) are discussed. Secondly, an indication of a paradigm shift in the approach to management is outlined and the ditl'erent management styles (top-down, bottom-up and middle-up-down) are contrasted in relation to knowledge management. Finally the underlying approaches to knowledge management (people-centred versus technologycentred) are considered.Die konsep kennisbestuur kom toenemend voor in die akademiese sowel as popuH~reliteratuur. Die doelstelling van hierdie artikel is om die konsepsionele gronde van kennisbestuur te ondersoek, beginnend met 'n konseptuele verheldering van kennis relatief tot inligting en data. Die kenmerkende eienskappe van kennis in terme van vorms, vlakke en kategoriee word bespreek. Gesien teen hierdie agtergrond word daar gepoog om 'n definisie van kennisbestuur te vind wat dan vergelyk word met inligtingbestuur. Die toenemende klem op kennis in organisasies het gelei tot 'n nuwe vorm van kapitaal wat voorkom as menslike of strukturele intellektuele kapitaal. Ous word die verwantskap tussen kennisbestuur en korporatiewe geheue asook die lerende organisasie bekyk. Daar is verskeie raamwerke waarbinne kennisbestuur geYnterpreteerkan word; die eerste is analogie waarvan drie wat geredelik in die literatuur voorkom (ekonomies, biologies en die se samesmelting in sogenaamde bionomie) in verband met kennisbestuur bespreek kan word. Tweedens word 'n aanduiding gegee van 'n paradigmaverskuiwing wat kennisbestuur te weeg bring en die verskillende bestuurstyle (bo-na-onder,' onder-na-bo en middel-op-af) word teenoor mekaar gestel. Laastens word die onderliggende benaderings tot kennisbestuur (mensgesentreerd versus tegnologiegesentreerd) onder die loep geneem.Knowledge management is not a radically new concept.Horton indicated in 1979 in his evolution of resource management functions that the management of knowledge already began during the 1980s which comprised of expert systems and artificial intelligence and which recognised the economic and cultural value of knowledge (Horton 1979)....

It is well known that tourism can bring problems for poor rural people in less developed countries. This paper describes a pilot study of five rural communities in the vicinity of or within a South African protected area, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Within the context of sustainable tourism development and the sustainable livelihoods approach, it explores whether access to information and to education and training impacts on the survival of these communities. The information provision role of governing authorities is also investigated regarding the preservation of the site and also for ownership and land claims. The results indicate that lack of access to relevant information can be a prime reason why rural communities cannot break out of the poverty cycle, and they suggest it is imperative to train and educate survivalist communities so that they can mobilise themselves economically, including through local tourism development. The demonstrated significance of lack of information provision, training and education represents a new contribution to the field. The study concludes that, where it is a matter of survival for rural communities, a sustainable livelihoods approach may be more appropriate and attainable than a sustainable tourism development approach.