Determining the economic value of game farm tourism

Internationally tourism is accepted as one of the world's fastest-growing industries. The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) indicated that tourist arrivals in 1998 grew by 2.4 % worldwide. The WTO has forecast that the number of people travelling internationally will increase from 613 million in 1997 to 1.6 billion by the year 2020. Ecotourism, which according to the WTO is any form of tourism to an unspoilt nature area,is responsible for 20 % of the world's total tourism expenditure and is also rated the fastest growing of all tourism sectors. It is also a fact that 80 % of nature conservation in South Africa is taking place on privately owned land such as game farms, and this forms part of ecotourism. The above endorses that ecotourism is an important product for South Africa and a drawcard for international as well as local tourists. The main objective of this study was to determine the economic value of game farm tourism. This will be done by determining the economic value of each of the four pillars on which game farming is based, namely hunting, ecotourism, breeding rare game species andvenison sales. Data collation was done in two ways. Firstly, research was conducted in the form of questionnaires. Game farms were randomly sampled from the database of registered game farms. The aim of this questionnaire was threefold and determined the economic contribution of game farm tourism to ecotourism. Secondly, a literature study was conducted that included the latest data by PHASA (Professional Hunters Association of South Africa), Nature Conservation and trophy hunting in South Africa. This paper will argue that game farm tourism makes a significant economic contribution to the economy of South Africa, apart from the substantial economic contribution game farm tourism already makes to conservation. This paper will be organised as follows: The first section deals with the introduction, which indicates the growth of game farm tourism; the second section explains the methodology; the third section discusses the results; and the last section concludes the paper