This article explores a philosophical and theoretical basis of the discipline of Public Administration and Management and that of Tourism Development with reference to tourism in the Transkei Wild Coast. Linking the two disciplines is the tourism industry, which is still in its infancy. The government, through municipalities in this area, should take a leading role by injecting funds for the development and growth of this industry. The tourism literature articulates that there are fewer tourism studies than the activities they describe. They are in the business of generalising about the phenomena in the world of tourism and the postulation of theories. Hence a number of tourism scholars such as Tribe have postulated that tourism studies constitute only a microcosm of tourism. Tribe explains that there may be interesting aspects of tourism that are not as yet revealed or discovered by the study of tourism. This article shows that it i