The organisation, geography and local developmental impacts of heritage tourism in South Africa

Heritage tourism scholarship is a growing domain of research in South Africa and with contributions from a range of different academic disciplines, including geography. Consistent with trends in tourism research most research on heritage and heritage tourism is in the context of countries located in the global North. The opportunities for developing heritage tourism in several countries in the global South has seen a parallel welcome growth of writings on heritage tourism outside of North America, Europe and Australasia. This study focuses on issues relating to an emerging heritage tourism region in the global South, namely South Africa, where heritage tourism was identified early in post-apartheid planning as an important niche for tourism promotion and diversification of product mix, as well as offering unexploited potential for local and regional tourism development. As niche tourism planning has expanded in significance for national policy-makers, heritage tourism has been afforded greater prominence. It is observed that recognition of the importance of heritage tourism extends across the different tiers of government in South Africa from national to provincial to local. At the local scale of government, it is striking that several South African cities have sought to capitalise on aspects of heritage tourism as components of local strategies for urban tourism development, and of broader local economic development planning. This said, heritage tourism so far occupies only a minor position in the growing academic literature on tourism both in South Africa and the wider region of Southern Africa. This study seeks to extend African debates around heritage tourism. The core focus of the study was to analyse the organisation, geography and local impacts of heritage tourism in South Africa. In addition, the study contains a policy focus on identifying the key challenges facing the development of contemporary heritage tourism in South Africa, in terms of maximising its potential as a niche sector of the South African tourism economy. To achieve these research objectives, the study undertook the collection of primary resources, which included a national audit of heritage assets, an analysis of national and local policy documentation and extensive primary interviews with heritage tourists, and local heritage stakeholders...National Research Foundatio