A Resilient Tourism Future for Developing Countries: Conclusions and Recommendations

Olga L. Kupika and Kaitano Dube
Additional contact information
Olga L. Kupika: School of Wildlife and Environmental Sciences
Kaitano Dube: Vaal University of Technology

Chapter Chapter 17 in COVID-19, Tourist Destinations and Prospects for Recovery, 2023, pp 293-310 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Resilience building is a panacea to promoting a safe and sustainable tourism economy in Southern Africa and beyond. This chapter highlights key findings from case studies across South Africa and Zimbabwe before, during and after the COVID-19 lockdown period (before 2020 and post-2021). The chapter presents the major findings and policy recommendations related to (i) the impacts of COVID-19 on tourist destinations, (ii) the management of COVID-19 in tourist destinations and (iii) tourism recovery and resilience in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The study found that COVID-19 led to a loss of revenue for state actors, private companies, tourism employees and host communities in South African and Zimbabwean destinations as a consequence of restrictive measures that were put in place to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The general picture is that COVID-19 has reconfigured the tourism sector from one largely dependent on international tourists to one on domestic tourists’ drive. The recovery process has been quite complex and challenging given the direct and indirect challenges caused by COVID-19, which are compounded by the Russia–Ukraine war and climate change. Building a resilient tourism future is a complex matter that requires the country and the region to deal with traditional challenges of regional geopolitics, address challenges of safety and security, address the issue of road and air network connectivity and address the tourism product marketing mix to make it more diverse and inclusive. Given the challenge of climate change in the region, promoting resilience building within the sector will go a long way in addressing current sustainability challenges.

Keywords: Tourism risks; Impacts; Protected area; Rural tourism; Recovery; SADC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-28340-6_17

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031283406

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-28340-6_17

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().