Failure of village ventures blamed on lack of financial savvy
The lacking of financial understanding and traditional obligation is the reason for the downfall of small micro tourism enterprises in the villages.

That is the sentiment of USP lecturer Dawn Gibson at the Regional Conference on small business development and entrepreneurship in the South Pacific Island countries.

Gibson spoke on the case study of two tourism projects in the Yasawa islands namely the Nadalia and Wailailai tourism projects.

She said that many communities tend to undertake these small scale projects to boost the living standards of the community, yet many of them do not have any understanding of how to run a business and in most cases the younger generations are sent for training but when they come back, they do not have any say at all as the chiefs still hold power and have the final word.

According to Gibson, another reason for the downfall was the fact that villagers have a lot of obligations to the village, the church and even to their extended family.

She said this is why there is not proper management of money.

Another being that the villagers use the kerekere or dinau or barter system and are in debt.

Gibson added that yaqona or kava drinking is a norm in the rural areas and this results in a high rate of absenteeism and laziness especially since the villagers are the ones that work in the tourism projects.

The Regional conference ends today.


Story by: Paradise Tabucala