The Economic Geography of South Africa’s Hotel Industry 1990–2010

Abstract

Hotels are a neglected facet in economic and tourism geography as the majority of scholarship on hotels is produced from the perspective of hospitality management. This article examines the changing geography of hotels in South Africa during the period 1990–2010 as part of the country’s expanding tourism economy. The analysis confirms the importance of several locational influences, which have been isolated in existing literature, in particular the significance of spatial patterns of market demand related to international leisure travel, domestic business tourism, and of the hosting of mega-events. Since 1990, the South African hotel industry necessarily has adjusted to new market demands related to the vibrancy of international tourism growth as well as an expansion of domestic tourism including of a new black leisure and business tourism market. By 2010, the hotel industry and its spatial distribution reflects the enormous changes, which have take out place in the South African tourism sector since democratic change. The transformed geography of the hotel industry is a response to changing demands associated with South Africa’s rise as an emerging international leisure and business tourism destination, including for regional visitors from sub-Saharan Africa, the expansion of domestic business tourism, and the shifting domestic leisure tourism market, which incorporates an increasing share of black South African tourists