The COVID-19 pandemic is having devastating economic and social consequences in the global South. This article is a rapid response critical assessment and examines COVID-19's emerging impacts for the ...tourism sector of South Africa, one of the world's worst affected destinations. Specific focus is upon responses by industry and government to the crisis and its unfolding impact for the tourism sector. The study is situated within the context of an expanding tourism scholarship and debates around the pandemic. Findings show a hollowing out of the South African tourism industry is taking place at an accelerating tempo with the most severely impacted being tourism small and micro-enterprises. The study highlights the occurrence of conflicts between key stakeholders and especially the frustrations of the tourism industry about the chaotic and changing policy regulations towards the sector as well as the weakness of government support interventions.
COVID-19 has triggered a burst of international scholarship concerning the reshaping of tourism and the resetting of tourism research agendas. The aim of this paper is to tease out some implications ...for re-orienting the African tourism research agenda from 2020 and beyond. Arguably, an appropriate African research response to COVID-19 in the context of tourism must embrace a genuine transdisciplinary approach and draw in researchers who would not, historically, have operated in the tourism space. Seven key themes are discussed namely, market confidence; dependence on international long-haul tourists; supporting regional and domestic tourism especially VFR travel; redefining community-based tourism; informal sector resilience; climate change; and, addressing present-mindedness in African tourism scholarship.
A critical focus within the growing scholarship around tourism development and planning is that of tourism and local economic development (LED) planning. This paper investigates the nexus of tourism ...and LED planning in South Africa. Arguably, South Africa provides fertile territory for exploring this relationship because of the national importance of tourism for the economy as a whole and of a policy commitment by national government to the support of sub-national development planning. Evidence is presented from the Overstrand Local Municipality in the Western Cape, one of many small towns where tourism is a critical local economic driver. The evidence shows that tourism expansion can contribute to enhanced growth of the local economy as well as job creation for local communities. This said, the existing ownership structure of the local tourism economy is massively weighted to white entrepreneurs such that the local tourism economy cannot be described as inclusive.
COVID-19 is a trigger event which is changing the complexion of African tourism and the directions of African tourism research. This article offers an overview and commentary on the state of African ...research produced during the uncertain times of 2020-2021 in specific response to the immediate impacts and changes which have been catalysed by the pandemic. The article is a progress report to capture and profile the body of focussed contributions on COVID-19 and tourism which have appeared for sub-Saharan Africa. Further, it is a contribution towards strengthening our understanding of tourism and change in the Global South. Overall, the discussion serves to highlight an emerging African scholarship which is engaged on a range of issues around three core themes of ramification, adaptation and transformation.
One of the most under-researched facets of lodging is that which surrounds the niche of camping tourism. This review article traces trends and recent developments shaping international research on ...camping tourism. The analysis begins with a discussion of definitional and conceptual issues. Thereafter, the international spread of camping tourism as well as its local impacts for destinations is interrogated. The marginal role of camping in overall tourism studies scholarship is isolated. Key themes of concern in recent research are, inter alia, demand-side considerations; supply-side research; a distinctive scholarship on holiday camps and low-budget tourism; and, new innovations and management challenges which are associated with the changing character of camping tourism in many parts of the world. Knowledge gaps are identified in literature both in terms of the geography and thematic foci of camping tourism literature. Among knowledge gaps are the supply-side evolution of camping tourism, the role of private sector entrepreneurs, local development impacts and planning, and innovative management interventions for the sustainable development of camping tourism.
The COVID-19 pandemic will exert a devastating and destructive impact on the South African tourism economy with its ramifications felt countrywide. Nevertheless, the negative local impacts of the ...pandemic will be particularly harsh for those parts of South Africa where tourism is a critical sector in the local economy. The objective in this article is to identify the tourism spaces of vulnerability in South Africa. Use is made of the IHS Global Insight data base for 2016 to analyse at a local authority scale the most vulnerable localities to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indicators used to isolate tourism spaces of vulnerability are total tourism spend; tourism spend as a proportion of local GDP; domestic and international tourism (trips and bednights); and, leisure, business and VFR (visiting friends and relatives) travel. The analysis discloses those local authorities that are the most vulnerable to the downturn/collapse of tourism as a whole as well as to the hollowing out of specific forms of tourism, namely domestic as opposed to international travel, leisure as opposed to business or VFR travel.
Johannesburg 2030 Rogerson, Christian M.; Rogerson, Jayne M.
The American behavioral scientist (Beverly Hills),
03/2015, Volume:
59, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Despite Johannesburg’s importance in urban Africa, the city is relatively neglected by urban researchers. Within the global network of cities, Johannesburg assumes a critical role of linking city and ...articulating the development of the capitalist economy of Southern Africa. Johannesburg’s future will be associated with addressing the multiple challenges of urban growth, management, and absorption. Arguably, the most important single challenge is that of achieving sustained economic growth as well as the creation of new employment and livelihood opportunities for the city’s growing population. Johannesburg’s economic prospects are inseparable from those of South Africa as a whole. Over the past 5 years, in response to the global crisis, the national government has launched a number of long-term development plans that seek to unlock South Africa’s economic constraints in the form of the New Growth Path, initiatives for reindustrialization, and the National Development Plan 2030. It is contended that the economic contours of Johannesburg 2030, to a large extent, will be determined by its role as linking city and by the impacts of these large-scale strategic policy interventions as mediated through metropolitan-level policy.
One consequence of the COVID-19-induced changing consumer travel preferences is growing demand from urban residents for open spaces and the experiences of rural destinations. This re-focuses ...attention on the challenges of rural tourism firms and of issues of developing rural tourism destinations. In extant international scholarship only limited studies have been undertaken for sub-Saharan Africa. This paper contributes to research debates on rural tourism change in the Global South and more particularly around COVID-19 and the development prospects for rural tourism in South Africa. Using 25 qualitative interviews undertaken in the rural Thaba Chweu Local Municipality of Mpumalanga province it is shown that the challenges facing rural tourism relate to weaknesses in the local institutional environment that have existed for the past two decades. The core constraints on expansion on rural tourism surround issues of the local government mismanagement and corruption. The consequence has been limited provision of basic services and maintenance of critical infrastructure, most especially roads, water and power supplies, which are essential for successful rural tourism development. It is concluded that the leading challenges facing rural tourism firms in South Africa are markedly different from issues which are highlighted in scholarship concerning rural tourism in the Global North.
The COVID-19 pandemic underlines the importance of geography and geographical analysis to tourism scholarship. This paper utilises a spatial approach to examine the impacts of the pandemic on tourism ...flows and examine the comparative performance of coastal tourism destinations in COVID-times. The case research is on South Africa one of the worst-hit countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the pandemic. Existing international literature points to a geographical change in consumer preferences for coastal destinations with reduced flows to traditional mass coastal destinations. The South African findings demonstrate the highly negative effects of the pandemic upon coastal tourism as a whole with the largest coastal cities experiencing the worst impacts. COVID-19 has caused a reversal of trends recorded for the past two decades for the benefits of coastal tourism to be concentrated in South Africa’s large coastal cities. Instead, it has resulted in the relative improvement of smaller coastal centres and in particular of centres which are relatively well-located for access to the domestic markets offered by large cities. These South African findings signal potential shifts in consumer psyche and travel behaviour as an outcome of COVID-19.
Purpose - The aim of this study was to analyse website disclosures of sustainability practices by major hotel chains in Zimbabwe. Design - Five major hotel chains in Zimbabwe were purposively ...selected for this study. The corporate websites of the selected hospitality chains were visited to determine their disclosure of sustainability practices. Methods - Based on the literature and other global best practices in hospitality sustainability, a coding framework was developed to help identify what to look for on the corporate websites. The codes were categorised into four broad areas, namely sustainability leadership, environmental sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. Data were collected from texts, annual reports, and other relevant website materials documenting sustainable practices of each hotel chain. Results - The analysis of website disclosures of sustainable practices adopted by Zimbabwe's five major hotel chains revealed that sustainability practices are not widely publicised. The available information on websites visited indicated more reporting of social sustainability issues and a fair amount of reporting on environmental sustainability. Economic sustainability is the least reported. Also notable is the low level of reporting on the SDGs and the lack of separate sustainability reports on the corporate websites surveyed. Originality - The results of this study provide a critical indication of how voluntary website disclosure can be improved in the absence of a strong legal framework.
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