Factors Affecting South African Tourism

1. INTRODUCTION

For a while tourism has been seen as “the salvation for Africa’s economic woes, poverty and underdevelopment” (Ferreira, 2004:303). A number of factors still affect Southern Africa’s tourism destinations. According to Cleverdon (2002) the region’s natural and sociocultural resources are in line with the growing interests of the international tourism market, but that growth will remain below potential unless efforts are made to improve international access and address the major (real and imagined) threats to tourist safety. Data from the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) show that in respect to of arrivals and receipts, Africa lags behind all other continents in fulfilling its tourism potential (WTO 2000,2001). It accounts for

Intraregional air services are inadequate because the level of demand is insufficient to warrant a better provision. In consequence, the SADC countries attract fewer tourists than they might otherwise have, because potential tourists who might select the region if they were able to spread their visit across three or four countries, opt for another part of the world. A second consequence is the requirement for many tourists visiting the SADC in the case of countries like Zimbabwe for the majority of long-haul tourists to travel via South Africa. This is perceived by the tourism officials of SADC countries as constituting a drain on their tourism earnings. It is argued that there are numerous flights into the SADC but long-haul tourists accustomed to daily frequencies do not acknowledge such services as being adequate. In addition, many tourists entering or leaving the region via South Africa do so from choice. One principal reason is that tourism has very large infrastructure requirements, the full provision of which countries have been unable to finance out of their public sector budget. It is reported, for example, that Tanzania needs 500 km of new or upgraded roads for tourism to expand significantly. The problem is that the scale of investment for such infrastructure can only rarely be justified on the basis of tourism alone (Robert

Tourism planning needs a holistic and integrated approach to be successful because it involves many different types of tourism enterprise. It also provides linkages with businesses not directly related to tourism, whose own calibre of operation directly impacts on the ability of tourism operators to deliver a satisfactory level of product or service (e.g. construction, agriculture and transport sectors). A long-term vision for tourism (incorporating policy principles, strategic guidelines and a perspective plan indicating what type of product will be developed where) is a basic requirement for any country seeking to develop tourism. This exists in South Africa’s case through the 1996 White Paper for the development and promotion of tourism (South Africa,