Tourism SMEs employees' perceptions regarding business excellence in Cape Town

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa’s tourism sector increasingly rely on business excellence practices to enhance competitiveness and performance. This study examines how employees in Cape Town tourism SMEs perceive business excellence, using a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative survey data with qualitative thematic insights. The findings identify key critical success factors underpinning business excellence, namely customer and employee satisfaction, operational efficiency, and organisational growth, with satisfaction emerging as the most dominant driver of performance. Additional enabling factors include strong leadership, continuous employee training, effective communication, and the implementation of quality management practices. While most employees indicated the presence of quality plans, gaps in understanding formal business excellence frameworks were evident, suggesting a disconnect between practice and conceptual awareness. These findings reinforce the importance of service quality as central to achieving sustained competitiveness in tourism SMEs. The study contributes to the effective and efficient adaptation of business excellence in both existing and future strategies for tourism SMEs' organizational development. The study contributes empirically to the limited South African literature on business excellence in SMEs and highlights the relevance of employee-centred performance dimensions. Practically, the results suggest that tourism SMEs should prioritise staff development, embed quality management systems, and foster a culture of continuous improvement, while policymakers and industry stakeholders should support SMEs through targeted training and capacity-building initiatives to enhance the effective adoption of business excellence frameworks. The main implication of the study results is that when business excellence principles are implemented, success and better results are easily achieved. Key Words: Business excellence, hotel industry, service quality, total quality management, tourism businesses