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Tourism’s Importance for Growth Highlighted in World Economic Outlook Report

All Regions
10 Nov 2023

Tourism has again been identified as a key driver of economic recovery and growth in a new report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With UNWTO data pointing to a return to 95% of pre-pandemic tourist numbers by the end of the year in the best case scenario, the IMF report outlines the positive impact the sector’s rapid recovery will have on certain economies worldwide.

According to the World Economic Outlook (WEO) Report , the global economy will grow an estimated 3.0% in 2023 and 2.9% in 2024. While this is higher than previous forecasts, it is nevertheless below the 3.5% rate of growth recorded in 2022, pointing to the continued impacts of the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and from the cost-of-living crisis.

Tourism key sector for growth

The WEO report analyses economic growth in every global region, connecting performance with key sectors, including tourism. Notably, those economies with "large travel and tourism sectors" show strong economic resilience and robust levels of economic activity. More specifically, countries where tourism represents a high percentage of GDP have recorded faster recovery from the impacts of the pandemic in comparison to economies where tourism is not a significant sector.

As the report Foreword notes: "Strong demand for services has supported service-oriented economies—including important tourism destinations such as France and Spain".

Looking Ahead

The latest outlook from the IMF comes on the back of UNWTO's most recent analysis of the prospects for tourism, at the global and regional levels. Pending the release of the November 2023 World Tourism Barometer , international tourism is on track to reach 80% to 95% of pre-pandemic levels in 2023. Prospects for September-December 2023 point to continued recovery, driven by the still pent-up demand and increased air connectivity particularly in Asia and the Pacific where recovery is still subdued.

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Related content, international tourism reached 97% of pre-pandemic level..., international tourism to reach pre-pandemic levels in 2024, international tourism to end 2023 close to 90% of pre-p..., international tourism swiftly overcoming pandemic downturn.

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The role of tourism in sustainable development.

Robert B. Richardson Robert B. Richardson Community Sustainability, Michigan State University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.387
Published online: 25 March 2021

Sustainable development is the foundational principle for enhancing human and economic development while maintaining the functional integrity of ecological and social systems that support regional economies. Tourism has played a critical role in sustainable development in many countries and regions around the world. In developing countries, tourism development has been used as an important strategy for increasing economic growth, alleviating poverty, creating jobs, and improving food security. Many developing countries are in regions that are characterized by high levels of biological diversity, natural resources, and cultural heritage sites that attract international tourists whose local purchases generate income and support employment and economic development. Tourism has been associated with the principles of sustainable development because of its potential to support environmental protection and livelihoods. However, the relationship between tourism and the environment is multifaceted, as some types of tourism have been associated with negative environmental impacts, many of which are borne by host communities.

The concept of sustainable tourism development emerged in contrast to mass tourism, which involves the participation of large numbers of people, often in structured or packaged tours. Mass tourism has been associated with economic leakage and dependence, along with negative environmental and social impacts. Sustainable tourism development has been promoted in various ways as a framing concept in contrast to these economic, environmental, and social impacts. Some literature has acknowledged a vagueness of the concept of sustainable tourism, which has been used to advocate for fundamentally different strategies for tourism development that may exacerbate existing conflicts between conservation and development paradigms. Tourism has played an important role in sustainable development in some countries through the development of alternative tourism models, including ecotourism, community-based tourism, pro-poor tourism, slow tourism, green tourism, and heritage tourism, among others that aim to enhance livelihoods, increase local economic growth, and provide for environmental protection. Although these models have been given significant attention among researchers, the extent of their implementation in tourism planning initiatives has been limited, superficial, or incomplete in many contexts.

The sustainability of tourism as a global system is disputed among scholars. Tourism is dependent on travel, and nearly all forms of transportation require the use of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels for energy. The burning of fossil fuels for transportation generates emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change, which is fundamentally unsustainable. Tourism is also vulnerable to both localized and global shocks. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to localized shocks include the impacts of natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and civil unrest. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to global shocks include the impacts of climate change, economic crisis, global public health pandemics, oil price shocks, and acts of terrorism. It is clear that tourism has contributed significantly to economic development globally, but its role in sustainable development is uncertain, debatable, and potentially contradictory.

conservation
economic development
environmental impacts
sustainable development
sustainable tourism
tourism development

Introduction

Sustainable development is the guiding principle for advancing human and economic development while maintaining the integrity of ecosystems and social systems on which the economy depends. It is also the foundation of the leading global framework for international cooperation—the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015 ). The concept of sustainable development is often associated with the publication of Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED], 1987 , p. 29), which defined it as “paths of human progress that meet the needs and aspirations of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Concerns about the environmental implications of economic development in lower income countries had been central to debates about development studies since the 1970s (Adams, 2009 ). The principles of sustainable development have come to dominate the development discourse, and the concept has become the primary development paradigm since the 1990s.

Tourism has played an increasingly important role in sustainable development since the 1990s, both globally and in particular countries and regions. For decades, tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, non-extractive option for economic development, particularly for developing countries (Gössling, 2000 ). Many developing countries have managed to increase their participation in the global economy through development of international tourism. Tourism development is increasingly viewed as an important tool in increasing economic growth, alleviating poverty, and improving food security. Tourism enables communities that are poor in material wealth, but rich in history and cultural heritage, to leverage their unique assets for economic development (Honey & Gilpin, 2009 ). More importantly, tourism offers an alternative to large-scale development projects, such as construction of dams, and to extractive industries such as mining and forestry, all of which contribute to emissions of pollutants and threaten biodiversity and the cultural values of Indigenous Peoples.

Environmental quality in destination areas is inextricably linked with tourism, as visiting natural areas and sightseeing are often the primary purpose of many leisure travels. Some forms of tourism, such as ecotourism, can contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of ecosystem functions in destination areas (Fennell, 2020 ; Gössling, 1999 ). Butler ( 1991 ) suggests that there is a kind of mutual dependence between tourism and the environment that should generate mutual benefits. Many developing countries are in regions that are characterized by high levels of species diversity, natural resources, and protected areas. Such ideas imply that tourism may be well aligned with the tenets of sustainable development.

However, the relationship between tourism and the environment is complex, as some forms of tourism have been associated with negative environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater use, land use, and food consumption (Butler, 1991 ; Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ; Hunter & Green, 1995 ; Vitousek et al., 1997 ). Assessments of the sustainability of tourism have highlighted several themes, including (a) parks, biodiversity, and conservation; (b) pollution and climate change; (c) prosperity, economic growth, and poverty alleviation; (d) peace, security, and safety; and (e) population stabilization and reduction (Buckley, 2012 ). From a global perspective, tourism contributes to (a) changes in land cover and land use; (b) energy use, (c) biotic exchange and extinction of wild species; (d) exchange and dispersion of diseases; and (e) changes in the perception and understanding of the environment (Gössling, 2002 ).

Research on tourism and the environment spans a wide range of social and natural science disciplines, and key contributions have been disseminated across many interdisciplinary fields, including biodiversity conservation, climate science, economics, and environmental science, among others (Buckley, 2011 ; Butler, 1991 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Given the global significance of the tourism sector and its environmental impacts, the role of tourism in sustainable development is an important topic of research in environmental science generally and in environmental economics and management specifically. Reviews of tourism research have highlighted future research priorities for sustainable development, including the role of tourism in the designation and expansion of protected areas; improvement in environmental accounting techniques that quantify environmental impacts; and the effects of individual perceptions of responsibility in addressing climate change (Buckley, 2012 ).

Tourism is one of the world’s largest industries, and it has linkages with many of the prime sectors of the global economy (Fennell, 2020 ). As a global economic sector, tourism represents one of the largest generators of wealth, and it is an important agent of economic growth and development (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ). Tourism is a critical industry in many local and national economies, and it represents a large and growing share of world trade (Hunter, 1995 ). Global tourism has had an average annual increase of 6.6% over the past half century, with international tourist arrivals rising sharply from 25.2 million in 1950 to more than 950 million in 2010 . In 2019 , the number of international tourists reached 1.5 billion, up 4% from 2018 (Fennell, 2020 ; United Nations World Tourism Organization [UNWTO], 2020 ). European countries are host to more than half of international tourists, but since 1990 , growth in international arrivals has risen faster than the global average, in both the Middle East and the Asia and Pacific region (UNWTO, 2020 ).

The growth in global tourism has been accompanied by an expansion of travel markets and a diversification of tourism destinations. In 1950 , the top five travel destinations were all countries in Europe and the Americas, and these destinations held 71% of the global travel market (Fennell, 2020 ). By 2002 , these countries represented only 35%, which underscores the emergence of newly accessible travel destinations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim, including numerous developing countries. Over the past 70 years, global tourism has grown significantly as an economic sector, and it has contributed to the economic development of dozens of nations.

Given the growth of international tourism and its emergence as one of the world’s largest export sectors, the question of its impact on economic growth for the host countries has been a topic of great interest in the tourism literature. Two hypotheses have emerged regarding the role of tourism in the economic growth process (Apergis & Payne, 2012 ). First, tourism-led growth hypothesis relies on the assumption that tourism is an engine of growth that generates spillovers and positive externalities through economic linkages that will impact the overall economy. Second, the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis emphasizes policies oriented toward well-defined and enforceable property rights, stable political institutions, and adequate investment in both physical and human capital to facilitate the development of the tourism sector. Studies have concluded with support for both the tourism-led growth hypothesis (e.g., Durbarry, 2004 ; Katircioglu, 2010 ) and the economic-led growth hypothesis (e.g., Katircioglu, 2009 ; Oh, 2005 ), whereas other studies have found support for a bidirectional causality for tourism and economic growth (e.g., Apergis & Payne, 2012 ; Lee & Chang, 2008 ).

The growth of tourism has been marked by an increase in the competition for tourist expenditures, making it difficult for destinations to maintain their share of the international tourism market (Butler, 1991 ). Tourism development is cyclical and subject to short-term cycles and overconsumption of resources. Butler ( 1980 ) developed a tourist-area cycle of evolution that depicts the number of tourists rising sharply over time through periods of exploration, involvement, and development, before eventual consolidation and stagnation. When tourism growth exceeds the carrying capacity of the area, resource degradation can lead to the decline of tourism unless specific steps are taken to promote rejuvenation (Butler, 1980 , 1991 ).

The potential of tourism development as a tool to contribute to environmental conservation, economic growth, and poverty reduction is derived from several unique characteristics of the tourism system (UNWTO, 2002 ). First, tourism represents an opportunity for economic diversification, particularly in marginal areas with few other export options. Tourists are attracted to remote areas with high values of cultural, wildlife, and landscape assets. The cultural and natural heritage of developing countries is frequently based on such assets, and tourism represents an opportunity for income generation through the preservation of heritage values. Tourism is the only export sector where the consumer travels to the exporting country, which provides opportunities for lower-income households to become exporters through the sale of goods and services to foreign tourists. Tourism is also labor intensive; it provides small-scale employment opportunities, which also helps to promote gender equity. Finally, there are numerous indirect benefits of tourism for people living in poverty, including increased market access for remote areas through the development of roads, infrastructure, and communication networks. Nevertheless, travel is highly income elastic and carbon intensive, which has significant implications for the sustainability of the tourism sector (Lenzen et al., 2018 ).

Concerns about environmental issues appeared in tourism research just as global awareness of the environmental impacts of human activities was expanding. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm in 1972 , the same year as the publication of The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972 ), which highlighted the concerns about the implications of exponential economic and population growth in a world of finite resources. This was the same year that the famous Blue Marble photograph of Earth was taken by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft (Höhler, 2015 , p. 10), and the image captured the planet cloaked in the darkness of space and became a symbol of Earth’s fragility and vulnerability. As noted by Buckley ( 2012 ), tourism researchers turned their attention to social and environmental issues around the same time (Cohen, 1978 ; Farrell & McLellan, 1987 ; Turner & Ash, 1975 ; Young, 1973 ).

The notion of sustainable development is often associated with the publication of Our Common Future , the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission (WCED, 1987 ). The report characterized sustainable development in terms of meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987 , p. 43). Four basic principles are fundamental to the concept of sustainability: (a) the idea of holistic planning and strategy making; (b) the importance of preserving essential ecological processes; (c) the need to protect both human heritage and biodiversity; and (d) the need to develop in such a way that productivity can be sustained over the long term for future generations (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ). In addition to achieving balance between economic growth and the conservation of natural resources, there should be a balance of fairness and opportunity between the nations of the world.

Although the modern concept of sustainable development emerged with the publication of Our Common Future , sustainable development has its roots in ideas about sustainable forest management that were developed in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries (Blewitt, 2015 ; Grober, 2007 ). Sustainable forest management is concerned with the stewardship and use of forests in a way that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, and regeneration capacity as well as their potential to fulfill society’s demands for forest products and benefits. Building on these ideas, Daly ( 1990 ) offered two operational principles of sustainable development. First, sustainable development implies that harvest rates should be no greater than rates of regeneration; this concept is known as maximum sustainable yield. Second, waste emission rates should not exceed the natural assimilative capacities of the ecosystems into which the wastes are emitted. Regenerative and assimilative capacities are characterized as natural capital, and a failure to maintain these capacities is not sustainable.

Shortly after the emergence of the concept of sustainable development in academic and policy discourse, tourism researchers began referring to the notion of sustainable tourism (May, 1991 ; Nash & Butler, 1990 ), which soon became the dominant paradigm of tourism development. The concept of sustainable tourism, as with the role of tourism in sustainable development, has been interpreted in different ways, and there is a lack of consensus concerning its meaning, objectives, and indicators (Sharpley, 2000 ). Growing interest in the subject inspired the creation of a new academic journal, Journal of Sustainable Tourism , which was launched in 1993 and has become a leading tourism journal. It is described as “an international journal that publishes research on tourism and sustainable development, including economic, social, cultural and political aspects.”

The notion of sustainable tourism development emerged in contrast to mass tourism, which is characterized by the participation of large numbers of people, often provided as structured or packaged tours. Mass tourism has risen sharply in the last half century. International arrivals alone have increased by an average annual rate of more than 25% since 1950 , and many of those trips involved mass tourism activities (Fennell, 2020 ; UNWTO, 2020 ). Some examples of mass tourism include beach resorts, cruise ship tourism, gaming casinos, golf resorts, group tours, ski resorts, theme parks, and wildlife safari tourism, among others. Little data exist regarding the volume of domestic mass tourism, but nevertheless mass tourism activities dominate the global tourism sector. Mass tourism has been shown to generate benefits to host countries, such as income and employment generation, although it has also been associated with economic leakage (where revenue generated by tourism is lost to other countries’ economies) and economic dependency (where developing countries are dependent on wealthier countries for tourists, imports, and foreign investment) (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Khan, 1997 ; Peeters, 2012 ). Mass tourism has been associated with numerous negative environmental impacts and social impacts (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Fennell, 2020 ; Ghimire, 2013 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Liu, 2003 ; Peeters, 2012 ; Wheeller, 2007 ). Sustainable tourism development has been promoted in various ways as a framing concept in contrast to many of these economic, environmental, and social impacts.

Much of the early research on sustainable tourism focused on defining the concept, which has been the subject of vigorous debate (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Inskeep, 1991 ; Liu, 2003 ; Sharpley, 2000 ). Early definitions of sustainable tourism development seemed to fall in one of two categories (Sharpley, 2000 ). First, the “tourism-centric” paradigm of sustainable tourism development focuses on sustaining tourism as an economic activity (Hunter, 1995 ). Second, alternative paradigms have situated sustainable tourism in the context of wider sustainable development policies (Butler, 1991 ). One of the most comprehensive definitions of sustainable tourism echoes some of the language of the Brundtland Commission’s definition of sustainable development (WCED, 1987 ), emphasizing opportunities for the future while also integrating social and environmental concerns:

Sustainable tourism can be thought of as meeting the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. Sustainable tourism development is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that we can fulfill economic, social and aesthetic needs while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems. (Inskeep, 1991 , p. 461)

Hunter argued that over the short and long terms, sustainable tourism development should

“meet the needs and wants of the local host community in terms of improved living standards and quality of life;

satisfy the demands of tourists and the tourism industry, and continue to attract them in order to meet the first aim; and

safeguard the environmental resource base for tourism, encompassing natural, built and cultural components, in order to achieve both of the preceding aims.” (Hunter, 1995 , p. 156)

Numerous other definitions have been documented, and the term itself has been subject to widespread critique (Buckley, 2012 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ). Nevertheless, there have been numerous calls to move beyond debate about a definition and to consider how it may best be implemented in practice (Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Liu, 2003 ). Cater ( 1993 ) identified three key criteria for sustainable tourism: (a) meeting the needs of the host population in terms of improved living standards both in the short and long terms; (b) satisfying the demands of a growing number of tourists; and (c) safeguarding the natural environment in order to achieve both of the preceding aims.

Some literature has acknowledged a vagueness of the concept of sustainable tourism, which has been used to advocate for fundamentally different strategies for tourism development that may exacerbate existing conflicts between conservation and development paradigms (Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ; McKercher, 1993b ). Similar criticisms have been leveled at the concept of sustainable development, which has been described as an oxymoron with a wide range of meanings (Adams, 2009 ; Daly, 1990 ) and “defined in such a way as to be either morally repugnant or logically redundant” (Beckerman, 1994 , p. 192). Sharpley ( 2000 ) suggests that in the tourism literature, there has been “a consistent and fundamental failure to build a theoretical link between sustainable tourism and its parental paradigm,” sustainable development (p. 2). Hunter ( 1995 ) suggests that practical measures designed to operationalize sustainable tourism fail to address many of the critical issues that are central to the concept of sustainable development generally and may even actually counteract the fundamental requirements of sustainable development. He suggests that mainstream sustainable tourism development is concerned with protecting the immediate resource base that will sustain tourism development while ignoring concerns for the status of the wider tourism resource base, such as potential problems associated with air pollution, congestion, introduction of invasive species, and declining oil reserves. The dominant paradigm of sustainable tourism development has been described as introverted, tourism-centric, and in competition with other sectors for scarce resources (McKercher, 1993a ). Hunter ( 1995 , p. 156) proposes an alternative, “extraparochial” paradigm where sustainable tourism development is reconceptualized in terms of its contribution to overall sustainable development. Such a paradigm would reconsider the scope, scale, and sectoral context of tourism-related resource utilization issues.

“Sustainability,” “sustainable tourism,” and “sustainable development” are all well-established terms that have often been used loosely and interchangeably in the tourism literature (Liu, 2003 ). Nevertheless, the subject of sustainable tourism has been given considerable attention and has been the focus of numerous academic compilations and textbooks (Coccossis & Nijkamp, 1995 ; Hall & Lew, 1998 ; Stabler, 1997 ; Swarbrooke, 1999 ), and it calls for new approaches to sustainable tourism development (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Garrod & Fyall, 1998 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Sharpley, 2000 ). The notion of sustainable tourism has been reconceptualized in the literature by several authors who provided alternative frameworks for tourism development (Buckley, 2012 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Hunter, 1995 ; Liu, 2003 ; McKercher, 1993b ; Sharpley, 2000 ).

Early research in sustainable tourism focused on the local environmental impacts of tourism, including energy use, water use, food consumption, and change in land use (Buckley, 2012 ; Butler, 1991 ; Gössling, 2002 ; Hunter & Green, 1995 ). Subsequent research has emphasized the global environmental impacts of tourism, such as greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity losses (Gössling, 2002 ; Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ; Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Additional research has emphasized the impacts of environmental change on tourism itself, including the impacts of climate change on tourist behavior (Gössling et al., 2012 ; Richardson & Loomis, 2004 ; Scott et al., 2012 ; Viner, 2006 ). Countries that are dependent on tourism for economic growth may be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (Richardson & Witkoswki, 2010 ).

The early focus on environmental issues in sustainable tourism has been broadened to include economic, social, and cultural issues as well as questions of power and equity in society (Bramwell & Lane, 1993 ; Sharpley, 2014 ), and some of these frameworks have integrated notions of social equity, prosperity, and cultural heritage values. Sustainable tourism is dependent on critical long-term considerations of the impacts; notions of equity; an appreciation of the importance of linkages (i.e., economic, social, and environmental); and the facilitation of cooperation and collaboration between different stakeholders (Elliott & Neirotti, 2008 ).

McKercher ( 1993b ) notes that tourism resources are typically part of the public domain or are intrinsically linked to the social fabric of the host community. As a result, many commonplace tourist activities such as sightseeing may be perceived as invasive by members of the host community. Many social impacts of tourism can be linked to the overuse of the resource base, increases in traffic congestion, rising land prices, urban sprawl, and changes in the social structure of host communities. Given the importance of tourist–resident interaction, sustainable tourism development depends in part on the support of the host community (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ).

Tourism planning involves the dual objectives of optimizing the well-being of local residents in host communities and minimizing the costs of tourism development (Sharpley, 2014 ). Tourism researchers have paid significant attention to examining the social impacts of tourism in general and to understanding host communities’ perceptions of tourism in particular. Studies of the social impacts of tourism development have examined the perceptions of local residents and the effects of tourism on social cohesion, traditional lifestyles, and the erosion of cultural heritage, particularly among Indigenous Peoples (Butler & Hinch, 2007 ; Deery et al., 2012 ; Mathieson & Wall, 1982 ; Sharpley, 2014 ; Whitford & Ruhanen, 2016 ).

Alternative Tourism and Sustainable Development

A wide body of published research is related to the role of tourism in sustainable development, and much of the literature involves case studies of particular types of tourism. Many such studies contrast types of alternative tourism with those of mass tourism, which has received sustained criticism for decades and is widely considered to be unsustainable (Cater, 1993 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Fennell, 2020 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Liu, 2003 ; Peeters, 2012 ; Zapata et al., 2011 ). Still, some tourism researchers have taken issue with the conclusion that mass tourism is inherently unsustainable (Sharpley, 2000 ; Weaver, 2007 ), and some have argued for developing pathways to “sustainable mass tourism” as “the desired and impending outcome for most destinations” (Weaver, 2012 , p. 1030). In integrating an ethical component to mass tourism development, Weaver ( 2014 , p. 131) suggests that the desirable outcome is “enlightened mass tourism.” Such suggestions have been contested in the literature and criticized for dubious assumptions about emergent norms of sustainability and support for growth, which are widely seen as contradictory (Peeters, 2012 ; Wheeller, 2007 ).

Models of responsible or alternative tourism development include ecotourism, community-based tourism, pro-poor tourism, slow tourism, green tourism, and heritage tourism, among others. Most models of alternative tourism development emphasize themes that aim to counteract the perceived negative impacts of conventional or mass tourism. As such, the objectives of these models of tourism development tend to focus on minimizing environmental impacts, supporting biodiversity conservation, empowering local communities, alleviating poverty, and engendering pleasant relationships between tourists and residents.

Approaches to alternative tourism development tend to overlap with themes of responsible tourism, and the two terms are frequently used interchangeably. Responsible tourism has been characterized in terms of numerous elements, including

ensuring that communities are involved in and benefit from tourism;

respecting local, natural, and cultural environments;

involving the local community in planning and decision-making;

using local resources sustainably;

behaving in ways that are sensitive to the host culture;

maintaining and encouraging natural, economic, and cultural diversity; and

assessing environmental, social, and economic impacts as a prerequisite to tourism development (Spenceley, 2012 ).

Hetzer ( 1965 ) identified four fundamental principles or perquisites for a more responsible form of tourism: (a) minimum environmental impact; (b) minimum impact on and maximum respect for host cultures; (c) maximum economic benefits to the host country; and (d) maximum leisure satisfaction to participating tourists.

The history of ecotourism is closely connected with the emergence of sustainable development, as it was born out of a concern for the conservation of biodiversity. Ecotourism is a form of tourism that aims to minimize local environmental impacts while bringing benefits to protected areas and the people living around those lands (Honey, 2008 ). Ecotourism represents a small segment of nature-based tourism, which is understood as tourism based on the natural attractions of an area, such as scenic areas and wildlife (Gössling, 1999 ). The ecotourism movement gained momentum in the 1990s, primarily in developing countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly all countries are now engaged in some form of ecotourism. In some communities, ecotourism is the primary economic activity and source of income and economic development.

The term “ecotourism” was coined by Hector Ceballos-Lascuráin and defined by him as “tourism that consists in travelling to relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated natural areas with the specific object of studying, admiring, and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants and animals” (Ceballos-Lascuráin, 1987 , p. 13). In discussing ecotourism resources, he also made reference to “any existing cultural manifestations (both past and present) found in these areas” (Ceballos-Lascuráin, 1987 , p. 14). The basic precepts of ecotourism had been discussed long before the actual use of the term. Twenty years earlier, Hetzer ( 1965 ) referred to a form of tourism “based principally upon natural and archaeological resources such as caves, fossil sites (and) archaeological sites.” Thus, both natural resources and cultural resources were integrated into ecotourism frameworks from the earliest manifestations.

Costa Rica is well known for having successfully integrated ecotourism in its overall strategy for sustainable development, and numerous case studies of ecotourism in Costa Rica appear in the literature (Chase et al., 1998 ; Fennell & Eagles, 1990 ; Gray & Campbell, 2007 ; Hearne & Salinas, 2002 ). Ecotourism in Costa Rica has been seen as having supported the economic development of the country while promoting biodiversity conservation in its extensive network of protected areas. Chase et al. ( 1998 ) estimated the demand for ecotourism in a study of differential pricing of entrance fees at national parks in Costa Rica. The authors estimated elasticities associated with the own-price, cross-price, and income variables and found that the elasticities of demand were significantly different between three different national park sites. The results reveal the heterogeneity characterizing tourist behavior and park attractions and amenities. Hearne and Salinas ( 2002 ) used choice experiments to examine the preferences of domestic and foreign tourists in Costa Rica in an ecotourism site. Both sets of tourists demonstrated a preference for improved infrastructure, more information, and lower entrance fees. Foreign tourists demonstrated relatively stronger preferences for the inclusion of restrictions in the access to some trails.

Ecotourism has also been studied extensively in Kenya (Southgate, 2006 ), Malaysia (Lian Chan & Baum, 2007 ), Nepal (Baral et al., 2008 ), Peru (Stronza, 2007 ), and Taiwan (Lai & Nepal, 2006 ), among many other countries. Numerous case studies have demonstrated the potential for ecotourism to contribute to sustainable development by providing support for biodiversity conservation, local livelihoods, and regional development.

Community-Based Tourism

Community-based tourism (CBT) is a model of tourism development that emphasizes the development of local communities and allows for local residents to have substantial control over its development and management, and a major proportion of the benefits remain within the community. CBT emerged during the 1970s as a response to the negative impacts of the international mass tourism development model (Cater, 1993 ; Hall & Lew, 2009 ; Turner & Ash, 1975 ; Zapata et al., 2011 ).

Community-based tourism has been examined for its potential to contribute to poverty reduction. In a study of the viability of the CBT model to support socioeconomic development and poverty alleviation in Nicaragua, tourism was perceived by participants in the study to have an impact on employment creation in their communities (Zapata et al., 2011 ). Tourism was seen to have had positive impacts on strengthening local knowledge and skills, particularly on the integration of women to new roles in the labor market. One of the main perceived gains regarding the environment was the process of raising awareness regarding the conservation of natural resources. The small scale of CBT operations and low capacity to accommodate visitors was seen as a limitation of the model.

Spenceley ( 2012 ) compiled case studies of community-based tourism in countries in southern Africa, including Botswana, Madagascar, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In this volume, authors characterize community-based and nature-based tourism development projects in the region and demonstrate how community participation in planning and decision-making has generated benefits for local residents and supported conservation initiatives. They contend that responsible tourism practices are of particular importance in the region because of the rich biological diversity, abundant charismatic wildlife, and the critical need for local economic development and livelihood strategies.

In Kenya, CBT enterprises were not perceived to have made a significant impact on poverty reduction at an individual household level, in part because the model relied heavily on donor funding, reinforcing dependency and poverty (Manyara & Jones, 2007 ). The study identified several critical success factors for CBT enterprises, namely, awareness and sensitization, community empowerment, effective leadership, and community capacity building, which can inform appropriate tourism policy formulation in Kenya. The impacts of CBT on economic development and poverty reduction would be greatly enhanced if tourism initiatives were able to emphasize independence, address local community priorities, enhance community empowerment and transparency, discourage elitism, promote effective community leadership, and develop community capacity to operate their own enterprises more efficiently.

Pro-Poor Tourism

Pro-poor tourism is a model of tourism development that brings net benefits to people living in poverty (Ashley et al., 2001 ; Harrison, 2008 ). Although its theoretical foundations and development objectives overlap to some degree with those of community-based tourism and other models of AT, the key distinctive feature of pro-poor tourism is that it places poor people and poverty at the top of the agenda. By focusing on a very simple and incontrovertibly moral idea, namely, the net benefits of tourism to impoverished people, the concept has broad appeal to donors and international aid agencies. Harnessing the economic benefits of tourism for pro-poor growth means capitalizing on the advantages while reducing negative impacts to people living in poverty (Ashley et al., 2001 ). Pro-poor approaches to tourism development include increasing access of impoverished people to economic benefits; addressing negative social and environmental impacts associated with tourism; and focusing on policies, processes, and partnerships that seek to remove barriers to participation by people living in poverty. At the local level, pro-poor tourism can play a very significant role in livelihood security and poverty reduction (Ashley & Roe, 2002 ).

Rogerson ( 2011 ) argues that the growth of pro-poor tourism initiatives in South Africa suggests that the country has become a laboratory for the testing and evolution of new approaches toward sustainable development planning that potentially will have relevance for other countries in the developing world. A study of pro-poor tourism development initiatives in Laos identified a number of favorable conditions for pro-poor tourism development, including the fact that local people are open to tourism and motivated to participate (Suntikul et al., 2009 ). The authors also noted a lack of development in the linkages that could optimize the fulfilment of the pro-poor agenda, such as training or facilitation of local people’s participation in pro-poor tourism development at the grassroots level.

Critics of the model have argued that pro-poor tourism is based on an acceptance of the status quo of existing capitalism, that it is morally indiscriminate and theoretically imprecise, and that its practitioners are academically and commercially marginal (Harrison, 2008 ). As Chok et al. ( 2007 ) indicate, the focus “on poor people in the South reflects a strong anthropocentric view . . . and . . . environmental benefits are secondary to poor peoples’” benefits (p. 153).

Harrison ( 2008 ) argues that pro-poor tourism is not a distinctive approach to tourism as a development tool and that it may be easier to discuss what pro-poor tourism is not than what it is. He concludes that it is neither anticapitalist nor inconsistent with mainstream tourism on which it relies; it is neither a theory nor a model and is not a niche form of tourism. Further, he argues that it has no distinctive method and is not only about people living in poverty.

Slow Tourism

The concept of slow tourism has emerged as a model of sustainable tourism development, and as such, it lacks an exact definition. The concept of slow tourism traces its origin back to some institutionalized social movements such as “slow food” and “slow cities” that began in Italy in the 1990s and spread rapidly around the world (Fullagar et al., 2012 ; Oh et al., 2016 , p. 205). Advocates of slow tourism tend to emphasize slowness in terms of speed, mobility, and modes of transportation that generate less environmental pollution. They propose niche marketing for alternative forms of tourism that focus on quality upgrading rather than merely increasing the quantity of visitors via the established mass-tourism infrastructure (Conway & Timms, 2010 ).

In the context of the Caribbean region, slow tourism has been promoted as more culturally sensitive and authentic, as compared to the dominant mass tourism development model that is based on all-inclusive beach resorts dependent on foreign investment (Conway & Timms, 2010 ). Recognizing its value as an alternative marketing strategy, Conway and Timms ( 2010 ) make the case for rebranding alternative tourism in the Caribbean as a means of revitalizing the sector for the changing demands of tourists in the 21st century . They suggest that slow tourism is the antithesis of mass tourism, which “relies on increasing the quantity of tourists who move through the system with little regard to either the quality of the tourists’ experience or the benefits that accrue to the localities the tourist visits” (Conway & Timms, 2010 , p. 332). The authors draw on cases from Barbados, the Grenadines, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago to characterize models of slow tourism development in remote fishing villages and communities near nature preserves and sea turtle nesting sites.

Although there is a growing interest in the concept of slow tourism in the literature, there seems to be little agreement about the exact nature of slow tourism and whether it is a niche form of special interest tourism or whether it represents a more fundamental potential shift across the industry. Conway and Timms ( 2010 ) focus on the destination, advocating for slow tourism in terms of a promotional identity for an industry in need of rebranding. Caffyn ( 2012 , p. 77) discusses the implementation of slow tourism in terms of “encouraging visitors to make slower choices when planning and enjoying their holidays.” It is not clear whether slow tourism is a marketing strategy, a mindset, or a social movement, but the literature on slow tourism nearly always equates the term with sustainable tourism (Caffyn, 2012 ; Conway & Timms, 2010 ; Oh et al., 2016 ). Caffyn ( 2012 , p. 80) suggests that slow tourism could offer a “win–win,” which she describes as “a more sustainable form of tourism; keeping more of the economic benefits within the local community and destination; and delivering a more meaningful and satisfying experience.” Research on slow tourism is nascent, and thus the contribution of slow tourism to sustainable development is not well understood.

Impacts of Tourism Development

The role of tourism in sustainable development can be examined through an understanding of the economic, environmental, and social impacts of tourism. Tourism is a global phenomenon that involves travel, recreation, the consumption of food, overnight accommodations, entertainment, sightseeing, and other activities that simultaneously intersect the lives of local residents, businesses, and communities. The impacts of tourism involve benefits and costs to all groups, and some of these impacts cannot easily be measured. Nevertheless, they have been studied extensively in the literature, which provides some context for how these benefits and costs are distributed.

Economic Impacts of Tourism

The travel and tourism sector is one of the largest components of the global economy, and global tourism has increased exponentially since the end of the Second World War (UNWTO, 2020 ). The direct, indirect, and induced economic impact of global travel accounted for 8.9 trillion U.S. dollars in contribution to the global gross domestic product (GDP), or 10.3% of global GDP. The global travel and tourism sector supports approximately 330 million jobs, or 1 in 10 jobs around the world. From an economic perspective, tourism plays a significant role in sustainable development. In many developing countries, tourism has the potential to play a unique role in income generation and distribution relative to many other industries, in part because of its high multiplier effect and consumption of local goods and services. However, research on the economic impacts of tourism has shown that this potential has rarely been fully realized (Liu, 2003 ).

Numerous studies have examined the impact of tourism expenditure on GDP, income, employment, and public sector revenue. Narayan ( 2004 ) used a computable general equilibrium model to estimate the economic impact of tourism growth on the economy of Fiji. Tourism is Fiji’s largest industry, with average annual growth of 10–12%; and as a middle-income country, tourism is critical to Fiji’s economic development. The findings indicate that an increase in tourism expenditures was associated with an increase in GDP, an improvement in the country’s balance of payments, and an increase in real consumption and national welfare. Evidence suggests that the benefits of tourism expansion outweigh any export effects caused by an appreciation of the exchange rate and an increase in domestic prices and wages.

Seetanah ( 2011 ) examined the potential contribution of tourism to economic growth and development using panel data of 19 island economies around the world from 1990 to 2007 and revealed that tourism development is an important factor in explaining economic performance in the selected island economies. The results have policy implications for improving economic growth by harnessing the contribution of the tourism sector. Pratt ( 2015 ) modeled the economic impact of tourism for seven small island developing states in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean. In most states, the transportation sector was found to have above-average linkages to other sectors of the economy. The results revealed some advantages of economies of scale for maximizing the economic contribution of tourism.

Apergis and Payne ( 2012 ) examined the causal relationship between tourism and economic growth for a panel of nine Caribbean countries. The panel of Caribbean countries includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. The authors use a panel error correction model to reveal bidirectional causality between tourism and economic growth in both the short run and the long run. The presence of bidirectional causality reiterates the importance of the tourism sector in the generation of foreign exchange income and in financing the production of goods and services within these countries. Likewise, stable political institutions and adequate government policies to ensure the appropriate investment in physical and human capital will enhance economic growth. In turn, stable economic growth will provide the resources needed to develop the tourism infrastructure for the success of the countries’ tourism sector. Thus, policy makers should be cognizant of the interdependent relationship between tourism and economic growth in the design and implementation of economic policy. The mixed nature of these results suggest that the relationship between tourism and economic growth depends largely on the social and economic context as well as the role of tourism in the economy.

The economic benefits and costs of tourism are frequently distributed unevenly. An analysis of the impact of wildlife conservation policies in Zambia on household welfare found that households located near national parks earn higher levels of income from wage employment and self-employment than other rural households in the country, but they were also more likely to suffer crop losses related to wildlife conflicts (Richardson et al., 2012 ). The findings suggest that tourism development and wildlife conservation can contribute to pro-poor development, but they may be sustainable only if human–wildlife conflicts are minimized or compensated.

Environmental Impacts of Tourism

The environmental impacts of tourism are significant, ranging from local effects to contributions to global environmental change (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). Tourism is both dependent on water resources and a factor in global and local freshwater use. Tourists consume water for drinking, when showering and using the toilet, when participating in activities such as winter ski tourism (i.e., snowmaking), and when using swimming pools and spas. Fresh water is also needed to maintain hotel gardens and golf courses, and water use is embedded in tourism infrastructure development (e.g., accommodations, laundry, dining) and in food and fuel production. Direct water consumption in tourism is estimated to be approximately 350 liters (L) per guest night for accommodation; when indirect water use from food, energy, and transport are considered, total water use in tourism is estimated to be approximately 6,575 L per guest night, or 27,800 L per person per trip (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). In addition, tourism contributes to the pollution of oceans as well as lakes, rivers, and other freshwater systems (Gössling, 2002 ; Gössling et al., 2011 ).

The clearing and conversion of land is central for tourism development, and in many cases, the land used for tourism includes roads, airports, railways, accommodations, trails, pedestrian walks, shopping areas, parking areas, campgrounds, vacation homes, golf courses, marinas, ski resorts, and indirect land use for food production, disposal of solid wastes, and the treatment of wastewater (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). Global land use for accommodation is estimated to be approximately 42 m 2 per bed. Total global land use for tourism is estimated to be nearly 62,000 km 2 , or 11.7 m 2 per tourist; more than half of this estimate is represented by land use for traffic infrastructure.

Tourism and hospitality have direct and indirect links to nearly all aspects of food production, preparation, and consumption because of the quantities of food consumed in tourism contexts (Gössling et al., 2011 ). Food production has significant implications for sustainable development, given the growing global demand for food. The implications include land conversion, losses to biodiversity, changes in nutrient cycling, and contributions to greenhouse emissions that are associated with global climate change (Vitousek et al., 1997 ). Global food use for tourism is estimated to be approximately 39.4 megatons 1 (Mt), about 38% than the amount of food consumed at home. This equates to approximately 1,800 grams (g) of food consumed per tourist per day.

Although tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, nonextractive option for economic development, (Gössling, 2000 ), assessments reveal that such pursuits have a significant carbon footprint, as tourism is significantly more carbon intensive than other potential areas of economic development (Lenzen et al., 2018 ). Tourism is dependent on energy, and virtually all energy use in the tourism sector is derived from fossil fuels, which contribute to global greenhouse emissions that are associated with global climate change. Energy use for tourism has been estimated to be approximately 3,575 megajoules 2 (MJ) per trip, including energy for travel and accommodations (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). A previous estimate of global carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from tourism provided values of 1.12 gigatons 3 (Gt) of CO 2 , amounting to about 3% of global CO 2 -equivalent (CO 2 e) emissions (Gössling & Peeters, 2015 ). However, these analyses do not cover the supply chains underpinning tourism and do not therefore represent true carbon footprints. A more complete analysis of the emissions from energy consumption necessary to sustain the tourism sector would include food and beverages, infrastructure construction and maintenance, retail, and financial services. Between 2009 and 2013 , tourism’s global carbon footprint is estimated to have increased from 3.9 to 4.5 GtCO 2 e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Lenzen et al., 2018 ). The majority of this footprint is exerted by and within high-income countries. The rising global demand for tourism is outstripping efforts at decarbonization of tourism operations and as a result is accelerating global carbon emissions.

Social Impacts of Tourism

The social impacts of tourism have been widely studied, with an emphasis on residents’ perceptions in the host community (Sharpley, 2014 ). Case studies include research conducted in Australia (Faulkner & Tideswell, 1997 ; Gursoy et al., 2010 ; Tovar & Lockwood, 2008 ), Belize (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2008 ), China (Gu & Ryan, 2008 ), Fiji (King et al., 1993 ), Greece (Haralambopoulos & Pizam, 1996 ; Tsartas, 1992 ), Hungary (Rátz, 2000 ), Thailand (Huttasin, 2008 ), Turkey (Kuvan & Akan, 2005 ), the United Kingdom (Brunt & Courtney, 1999 ; Haley et al., 2005 ), and the United States (Andereck et al., 2005 ; Milman & Pizam, 1988 ), among others. The social impacts of tourism are difficult to measure, and most published studies are mainly concerned with the social impacts on the host communities rather than the impacts on the tourists themselves.

Studies of residents’ perceptions of tourism are typically conducted using household surveys. In most cases, residents recognize the economic dependence on tourism for income, and there is substantial evidence to suggest that working in or owning a business in tourism or a related industry is associated with more positive perceptions of tourism (Andereck et al., 2007 ). The perceived nature of negative effects is complex and often conveys a dislike of crowding, traffic congestion, and higher prices for basic needs (Deery et al., 2012 ). When the number of tourists far exceeds that of the resident population, negative attitudes toward tourism may manifest (Diedrich & Garcia-Buades, 2008 ). However, residents who recognize negative impacts may not necessarily oppose tourism development (King et al., 1993 ).

In some regions, little is known about the social and cultural impacts of tourism despite its dominance as an economic sector. Tourism is a rapidly growing sector in Cuba, and it is projected to grow at rates that exceed the average projected growth rates for the Caribbean and the world overall (Salinas et al., 2018 ). Still, even though there has been rapid tourism development in Cuba, there has been little research related to the environmental and sociocultural impacts of this tourism growth (Rutty & Richardson, 2019 ).

In some international tourism contexts, studies have found that residents are generally resentful toward tourism because it fuels inequality and exacerbates racist attitudes and discrimination (Cabezas, 2004 ; Jamal & Camargo, 2014 ; Mbaiwa, 2005 ). Other studies revealed similar narratives and recorded statements of exclusion and socioeconomic stratification (Sanchez & Adams, 2008 ). Local residents often must navigate the gaps in the racialized, gendered, and sexualized structures imposed by the global tourism industry and host-country governments (Cabezas, 2004 ).

However, during times of economic crisis, residents may develop a more permissive view as their perceptions of the costs of tourism development decrease (Garau-Vadell et al., 2018 ). This increased positive attitude is not based on an increase in the perception of positive impacts of tourism, but rather on a decrease in the perception of the negative impacts.

There is a growing body of research on Indigenous and Aboriginal tourism that emphasizes justice issues such as human rights and self-empowerment, control, and participation of traditional owners in comanagement of destinations (Jamal & Camargo, 2014 ; Ryan & Huyton, 2000 ; Whyte, 2010 ).

Sustainability of Tourism

A process or system is said to be sustainable to the extent that it is robust, resilient, and adaptive (Anderies et al., 2013 ). By most measures, the global tourism system does not meet these criteria for sustainability. Tourism is not robust in that it cannot resist threats and perturbations, such as economic shocks, public health pandemics, war, and other disruptions. Tourism is not resilient in that it does not easily recover from failures, such as natural disasters or civil unrest. Furthermore, tourism is not adaptive in that it is often unable to change in response to external conditions. One example that underscores the failure to meet all three criteria is the dependence of tourism on fossil fuels for transportation and energy, which are key inputs for tourism development. This dependence itself is not sustainable (Wheeller, 2007 ), and thus the sustainability of tourism is questionable.

Liu ( 2003 ) notes that research related to the role of tourism in sustainable development has emphasized supply-side concepts such as sustaining tourism resources and ignored the demand side, which is particularly vulnerable to social and economic shocks. Tourism is vulnerable to both localized and global shocks. Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to localized shocks include disaster vulnerability in coastal Thailand (Calgaro & Lloyd, 2008 ), bushfires in northeast Victoria in Australia (Cioccio & Michael, 2007 ), forest fires in British Columbia, Canada (Hystad & Keller, 2008 ); and outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom (Miller & Ritchie, 2003 ).

Like most other economic sectors, tourism is vulnerable to the impacts of earthquakes, particularly in areas where tourism infrastructure may not be resilient to such shocks. Numerous studies have examined the impacts of earthquake events on tourism, including studies of the aftermath of the 1997 earthquake in central Italy (Mazzocchi & Montini, 2001 ), the 1999 earthquake in Taiwan (Huan et al., 2004 ; Huang & Min, 2002 ), and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in western Sichuan, China (Yang et al., 2011 ), among others.

Tourism is vulnerable to extreme weather events. Regional economic strength has been found to be associated with lower vulnerability to natural disasters. Kim and Marcoullier ( 2015 ) examined the vulnerability and resilience of 10 tourism-based regional economies that included U.S. national parks or protected seashores situated on the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic Ocean coastline that were affected by several hurricanes over a 26-year period. Regions with stronger economic characteristics prior to natural disasters were found to have lower disaster losses than regions with weaker economies.

Tourism is extremely sensitive to oil spills, whatever their origin, and the volume of oil released need not be large to generate significant economic losses (Cirer-Costa, 2015 ). Studies of the vulnerability of tourism to the localized shock of an oil spill include research on the impacts of oil spills in Alaska (Coddington, 2015 ), Brazil (Ribeiro et al., 2020 ), Spain (Castanedo et al., 2009 ), affected regions in the United States along the Gulf of Mexico (Pennington-Gray et al., 2011 ; Ritchie et al., 2013 ), and the Republic of Korea (Cheong, 2012 ), among others. Future research on the vulnerability of tourist destinations to oil spills should also incorporate freshwater environments, such as lakes, rivers, and streams, where the rupture of oil pipelines is more frequent.

Significant attention has been paid to assessing the vulnerability of tourist destinations to acts of terrorism and the impacts of terrorist attacks on regional tourist economies (Liu & Pratt, 2017 ). Such studies include analyses of the impacts of terrorist attacks on three European countries, Greece, Italy, and Austria (Enders et al., 1992 ); the impact of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States (Goodrich, 2002 ); terrorism and tourism in Nepal (Bhattarai et al., 2005 ); vulnerability of tourism livelihoods in Bali (Baker & Coulter, 2007 ); the impact of terrorism on tourist preferences for destinations in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands (Arana & León, 2008 ); the 2011 massacres in Olso and Utøya, Norway (Wolff & Larsen, 2014 ); terrorism and political violence in Tunisia (Lanouar & Goaied, 2019 ); and the impact of terrorism on European tourism (Corbet et al., 2019 ), among others. Pizam and Fleischer ( 2002 ) studied the impact of acts of terrorism on tourism demand in Israel between May 1991 and May 2001 , and they confirmed that the frequency of acts of terrorism had caused a larger decline in international tourist arrivals than the severity of these acts. Most of these are ex post studies, and future assessments of the underlying conditions of destinations could reveal a deeper understanding of the vulnerability of tourism to terrorism.

Tourism is vulnerable to economic crisis, both local economic shocks (Okumus & Karamustafa, 2005 ; Stylidis & Terzidou, 2014 ) and global economic crisis (Papatheodorou et al., 2010 ; Smeral, 2010 ). Okumus and Karamustafa ( 2005 ) evaluated the impact of the February 2001 economic crisis in Turkey on tourism, and they found that the tourism industry was poorly prepared for the economic crisis despite having suffered previous impacts related to the Gulf War in the early 1990s, terrorism in Turkey in the 1990s, the civil war in former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, an internal economic crisis in 1994 , and two earthquakes in the northwest region of Turkey in 1999 . In a study of the attitudes and perceptions of citizens of Greece, Stylidis and Terzidou ( 2014 ) found that economic crisis is associated with increased support for tourism development, particularly out of self-interest. Economic crisis diminishes residents’ concern for environmental issues. In a study of the behavior of European tourists amid an economic crisis, Eugenio-Martin and Campos-Soria ( 2014 ) found that the probability of households cutting back on travel expenditures depends largely on the climate and economic conditions of tourists’ home countries, and households that do reduce travel spending engage in tourism closer to home.

Becken and Lennox ( 2012 ) studied the implications of a long-term increase in oil prices for tourism in New Zealand, and they estimate that a doubling of oil prices is associated with a 1.7% decrease in real gross national disposable income and a 9% reduction in the real value of tourism exports. Chatziantoniou et al. ( 2013 ) investigated the relationship among oil price shocks, tourism variables, and economic indicators in four European Mediterranean countries and found that aggregate demand oil price shocks generated a lagged effect on tourism-generated income and economic growth. Kisswani et al. ( 2020 ) examined the asymmetric effect of oil prices on tourism receipts and the sensitive susceptibility of tourism to oil price changes using nonlinear analysis. The findings document a long-run asymmetrical effect for most countries, after incorporating the structural breaks, suggesting that governments and tourism businesses and organizations should interpret oil price fluctuations cautiously.

Finally, the sustainability of tourism has been shown to be vulnerable to the outbreak of infectious diseases, including the impact of the Ebola virus on tourism in sub-Saharan Africa (Maphanga & Henama, 2019 ; Novelli et al., 2018 ) and in the United States (Cahyanto et al., 2016 ). The literature also includes studies of the impact of swine flu on tourism demand in Brunei (Haque & Haque, 2018 ), Mexico (Monterrubio, 2010 ), and the United Kingdom (Page et al., 2012 ), among others. In addition, rapid assessments of the impacts of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have documented severe disruptions and cessations of tourism because of unprecedented global travel restrictions and widespread restrictions on public gatherings (Gössling et al., 2020 ; Qiu et al., 2020 ; Sharma & Nicolau, 2020 ). Hotels, airlines, cruise lines, and car rentals have all experienced a significant decrease globally because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the shock to the industry is significant enough to warrant concerns about the long-term outlook (Sharma & Nicolau, 2020 ). Qiu et al. ( 2020 ) estimated the social costs of the pandemic to tourism in three cities in China (Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Wuhan), and they found that most respondents were willing to pay for risk reduction and action in responding to the pandemic crisis; there was no significant difference between residents’ willingness to pay in the three cities. Some research has emphasized how lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic can prepare global tourism for an economic transformation that is needed to mitigate the impacts of climate change (Brouder, 2020 ; Prideaux et al., 2020 ).

It is clear that tourism has contributed significantly to economic development globally, but its role in sustainable development is uncertain, contested, and potentially paradoxical. This is due, in part, to the contested nature of sustainable development itself. Tourism has been promoted as a low-impact, nonextractive option for economic development, particularly for developing countries (Gössling, 2000 ), and many countries have managed to increase their participation in the global economy through development of international tourism. Tourism development has been viewed as an important sector for investment to enhance economic growth, poverty alleviation, and food security, and the sector provides an alternative opportunity to large-scale development projects and extractive industries that contribute to emissions of pollutants and threaten biodiversity and cultural values. However, global evidence from research on the economic impacts of tourism has shown that this potential has rarely been realized (Liu, 2003 ).

The role of tourism in sustainable development has been studied extensively and with a variety of perspectives, including the conceptualization of alternative or responsible forms of tourism and the examination of economic, environmental, and social impacts of tourism development. The research has generally concluded that tourism development has contributed to sustainable development in some cases where it is demonstrated to have provided support for biodiversity conservation initiatives and livelihood development strategies. As an economic sector, tourism is considered to be labor intensive, providing opportunities for poor households to enhance their livelihood through the sale of goods and services to foreign tourists.

Nature-based tourism approaches such as ecotourism and community-based tourism have been successful at attracting tourists to parks and protected areas, and their spending provides financial support for biodiversity conservation, livelihoods, and economic growth in developing countries. Nevertheless, studies of the impacts of tourism development have documented negative environmental impacts locally in terms of land use, food and water consumption, and congestion, and globally in terms of the contribution of tourism to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases related to transportation and other tourist activities. Studies of the social impacts of tourism have documented experiences of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, race, sex, and national identity.

The sustainability of tourism as an economic sector has been examined in terms of its vulnerability to civil conflict, economic shocks, natural disasters, and public health pandemics. Most studies conclude that tourism may have positive impacts for regional development and environmental conservation, but there is evidence that tourism inherently generates negative environmental impacts, primarily through pollutions stemming from transportation. The regional benefits of tourism development must be considered alongside the global impacts of increased transportation and tourism participation. Global tourism has also been shown to be vulnerable to economic crises, oil price shocks, and global outbreaks of infectious diseases. Given that tourism is dependent on energy, the movement of people, and the consumption of resources, virtually all tourism activities have significant economic, environmental, and sustainable impacts. As such, the role of tourism in sustainable development is highly questionable. Future research on the role of tourism in sustainable development should focus on reducing the negative impacts of tourism development, both regionally and globally.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE TOURISM SECTOR

25 Aug THE EVOLUTION OF THE TOURISM SECTOR

Tourism has evolved hand-in-hand with changing technology, communications and marketing practices.

While in 1950 the world welcomed 25 million international tourists, according to UNWTO data, by 2019 this had increased to 1.5 billion.

The massive increase in the number of people joining the middle classes globally, along with the falling cost of travelling, the emergence of low-cost airlines, and the rise of the internet and its impact on both social interactions and business models, are among the main factors behind the increase in tourist numbers.

Thanks to the internet, almost everyone can easily buy a plane or train ticket, often at a low cost.
The creation of new companies and market niches help consumers access travel in a more efficient and simple way, eliminating third parties. Travel agencies are being left in the background because of this.
New accommodation and transportation platforms have also increased levels of competition and lowered costs for tourists.

So, what was seen as a luxury available to just a small few in 1950 had by 2020 become an achievable aspiration for a large number of people in every part of the world.

While the situation for tourism in 2021 is characterized by its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector continues to adapt in order to restart and grow back stronger and more sustainably.

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Critical shifts in the global tourism industry: perspectives from Africa

Zibanai zhou.

Tourism and Hospitality Management Department, Midlands State University, P. Bag 9055, Gweru, Zimbabwe

The study investigates critical shifts impacting the international tourism space in contemporary times. Furthermore, the current study examines tourism policies and product development challenges faced by tourist regions as a consequence of market dynamics. Drawing upon a sample of thirty tourism experts in southern Africa, the critical shifts were identified and key among them include BRICS, terrorism, ageing population, and trophy hunting, are increasingly framing a new narrative for the future growth trajectory of the international tourism industry’s value chain in the context of Africa. A conclusion is reached that to attain long term sustainable development of the sunrise multi-trillion dollar industry, it is critical that tourism operators re-set and deploy sharpened strategies which are in synch with the realities obtaining in the broader operating environment. Policy recommendations and managerial implications are proffered.

Introduction

Globally, tourism contributes significantly to the national economies in terms of employment creation and revenue generation (Musavengane et al. 2019 ; UNWTO 2018a , b ). Understanding travel motivations and shifts in the global tourism marketplace is critical for unpacking future travel patterns and consumption perspectives, and also for tourist destinations to leverage on tourism spin-offs. Anton et al. ( 2017 ) observed that growing competition in the tourism landscape has resulted in destinations increasingly becoming concerned with balancing tourists with attracting new visitors.

While it is true that tourism is sensitive to violent events, political instabilities, disasters and calamities as well as economic meltdown (Alvarez and Campos 2014 ; Woyo 2018 ; Dieke 2009 ), it could be argued that tourism is also highly responsive to dynamics in the tourism market place. Hapairai et al. ( 2018 ) state that political crises often lead to a decline in visitorship and public and private tourism organisations should constantly adjust policies, and product offerings in tandem with market dynamics. However, research examining the fundamental shifts in the international tourism landscape is limited. Primary source markets such as the United Kingdom (UK); European Union, (EU) and North America consider emerging tourist destinations like Africa as offering alternative authentic touristic experiences as compared to over trodden traditional destinations. Based on this, understanding the implications of the global tourism market place fundamental shifts on emerging tourist regions such as Africa is critical for the formulation of destination- specific management strategies.

Research gap

The current study is informed by Dieke ( 2013 ) who opined that in Africa while there is a general disappointment with the economic returns from the tourism sector, there is insufficient knowledge of the market mix of international tourism, the market-driven nature of the sector, and the inability of governments to react to market changes or market signals. This is the research gap addressed by the current study. The current study therefore seeks to update and respond to these three issues at regional level in relation to Africa’s tourism industry in view of tourism dynamics in the marketplace.

In addition, this study seeks to also make a contribution to the disproportionate in extant literature on the burgeoning of literature on western and mature tourism markets at the expense of Africa (Rogerson and Visser 2014a , b ). The other major contribution of the current study is on the geographical ecology of tourism literature that largely remains dominated by western writers. The current study therefore ties well with Mkono ( 2019 ) ’s call for more African voices on tourism issues. “A sizeable proportion of tourism research on Africa has been conducted by outsiders.” (Mkono 2019 , p. 3). “… Locals’ opinions are often not meaningfully represented in tourism studies.” Mkono 2019 , p. 3). “If tourism studies are to reflect a more balanced representation, then the lens for viewing needs to be adjusted and diversified by having more page space for Africans in scholarly works (Mkono 2019 ). Henceforth, the study would give a fresh African narrative in the current global tourism discourse.

In addition, Naude and Saayman ( 2005 ) and Kester ( 2003 ) observed that observed that the economic dimensions of tourism to Africa, and specifically the determinants of the demand for Africa as a tourist destination, are neglected in the economic research literature. It is on the strength of Naude and Saayman ( 2005 )’s observed scholarly literature gap pertaining to Africa’s tourism industry that the current study seeks to address. Furthermore, Christie and Crompton ( 2001 ) bemoaned the lack of appropriate empirical research on tourism to Africa that undoubtedly contributes to the ‘limited policy guidance to the sector in relation to tourism market dynamics.

In this respect, Rogerson and Visser ( 2011 ) argued that the imperative exists for strengthening the tempo of critical research on geopolitical developments, development debates, and global economic crises. In the past 2 decades, there is an expanding body of critical work on tourism in southern Africa, though still, very little is known with regard to the critical shifts in the global tourism sector. Another context underpinning this study is trophy hunting, a controversial phenomenon which has been the subject of extensive but inconclusive research from a variety of angles (Batavia et al. 2018 ; Batara et al. 2018 ; Mkono 2018 ). To add on, Scott et al. ( 2012 ) noted that one of the limitation of the tourism literature in Africa is that studies have tended to examine the travel and tourism industry only in terms of one element of the tourism system, usually at a nation state level, or tourism sub-sector level, rather than conducting the broader tourism system (see, Donaldson and Ferreira 2007 ; Mbaiwa and Stronza 2010 ; Buscher 2013 ; Kavita and Saarinen 2016 ; Tichaawa 2017 ; Hoogendorn and Fitchett 2018 ).

Research investigating these shifts have done so from a developed country context (see, Giraldi 2016 ; Debyser 2014 ; Maria-Irina 2017 ; Weston et al. 2019a ) leaving a theoretical gap in the context of Africa, as an emerging destination. Understanding such global shifts is critical not only for destination managers, but also for institutional investors and public sector because it helps in terms of forecasting travel patterns, weighing investment opportunities, and budgeting. Furthermore, the constructs of terrorism, BRICs, trophy hunting and an ageing population are yet to be measured and applied simultaneously with the interconnectedness of nation states in the context of an emerging tourist region like Africa. Though there is an emerging stream of literature focusing on factors shaping international tourism future trends at the global level (UNWTO 2019a , b ; OECD 2018a ), there is a general absence of literature regarding the specific lynchpin variables which pertains exclusively to emerging tourist regions like Africa. Furthermore, the tourism related challenges and opportunities spawned by such fundamental variables in emerging tourist destination contexts like Africa remains mostly unknown.

Study rationale and importance

The international tourism landscape is not only dynamic, but fraught with an environment that is constantly changing in a very unpredictable manner (Badulesani and Rusu 2009 ; Kyyra and Rantala 2016 ; UNCTD 2016 ). Whilst the UNWTO and practitioners acknowledge the centrality of the market dynamics in the global tourism space, there has not been a corresponding sufficient academic gaze in the current literature discourse dedicated to interrogating and unpacking such issues within the frame of Africa.

The tourism industry is considered a key growth sector in southern Africa economy. Safety and security are regarded as primary ingredients for tourism growth and destination competitiveness (Donalsdson and Ferreira 2009 ; Correia et al. 2013 ; Langfield et al. 2019 ); however tourism demand and factors impacting on it remain under-researched areas (Visser and Rogerson 2004 ). Since this study deals with the global dynamics in the areas of terrorism, BRICS, trophy hunting, and ageing population; it differs conceptually and contextually from other previous tourism development studies in tourism. This paper is therefore theoretically situated in the international tourism futures literature.

The research was inspired by the fact that the contemporary international tourism sector has matured since the 1950s. It has grown from being an exclusive preserve of advanced societies to becoming a multi-party phenomenon in which the emerging markets are now actively participating (UNWTO 2018a , b ). Another motivating factor was that the industry has been traditionally dominated by the most advanced economies, especially the G7 countries, in the global north at the expense of intermediate economies, however emerging markets are encouragingly catching up (Bhatia 2001 ; Cooper et al. 2008 ).

Document analysis, archival information and expert opinions were employed to solicit for information that enriched the international tourism discourse from Africa’s perspective. The study highlights the critical shifts that undergird tourism future development and growth trajectories.

Research purpose and objectives

The aim of this study is to enhance and build on (1) Christie and Crompton ( 2001 )’s observation that there is lack of appropriate empirical research on tourism to Africa, which undoubtedly contributes to the limited policy guidance to the sector; (2) Naude and Saayman ( 2005 )’s assertion that there is a neglect of the economic dimension of tourism to Africa; and (3) Rogerson and Visser ( 2011 ) in which they opined the existence of an imperative for strengthening the tempo of critical research on geopolitical developments, development debates and global economic crises; and (4) Dieke ( 2013 ) who stated that in Africa there is not only insufficient knowledge of the market mix of international tourism, but also the market-driven nature of the sector as well as the inability of governments to react to market changes or market signals.

The objective of this study is to understand the fundamental global shifts in the international tourism landscape with special focus on Africa. To achieve this objective, data were collected from 30 tourism experts drawn from southern Africa region. Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) Why should emerging tourist regions like Africa be concerned with dynamics on the broader international tourism landscape? Of these factors, which ones significantly predict the future growth trajectories of the tourism industry in African context? Which specific tourism market shifts have impacted on Africa’s tourism sector? (2) What challenges and opportunities do emerging tourist destinations face in the advent of these global shifts? What challenges and implications do these shifts pose on Africa’s tourism product offering, marketing strategies and planning for her tourism sector. In addressing these research questions, this study advances the understanding of the long term consequences of the global shifts on Africa’s travel and tourism landscape. This study also adds to the debate focusing on travel motivations, trophy hunting (Baker 2010 ) crises (Steiner 2017 ; Al-Shorman et al. 2016 ), and mitigation strategies from a context-specific emerging tourist destination. The results of the survey can meaningfully inform the formulation of marketing messages aimed at repositioning Africa, thus making it even a more appealing tourist destination in spite of headwinds in the marketplace. In what way can Africa better prepare and anticipate the impacts of these shifts on custom, turn over, sales, investment etc.

Paper structure

The remaining sections are structured as follows: the next section briefly reviews key themes in relevant existing studies highlighting the sector’s economic significance at global level. This is followed by a brief description of the data and the empirical methodology. The analyses section provides a discussion of the empirical results using the content analysis highlighting the multi-faceted nature of tourism market dynamics. The final section provides overall conclusion and recommendations.

Literature review

Current state of tourism research in africa: a regional and international context.

Several studies have examined variables impacting international tourism at global level in different regional contexts, for example, tourism senior market (Naude and Saayman 2005 ; Alen et al. 2015 ); BRICs (Pop 2014 ; Abdou and Adawy 2018 ) using a number of relationships including data panel analysis, time series, arrivals and receipts; direction flows and distribution. However, studies examining the constructs of BRICs, terrorism, senior tourism market (ageing population demography), and trophy hunting controversy, from the African region perspective are limited. For example, existing studies have only investigated international tourism trends from advanced societies’ contexts; cases in point include Maria-Irina ( 2017 ), Debyser ( 2014 ), Weston et al. ( 2019a ) among others. Likewise, Rogerson and Visser ( 2011 ) argued for the continued need to understand the market dynamics fuelling tourism development trajectories in different tourist destination contexts. Additionally, previous studies that focused on tourism development in African tourist destinations have not only been restricted to a specific country or sub-region of continental Africa, but also limited in scope as they largely focused on specific segments and certain clusters of the tourism sector such as mega events, wildlife (Saarinen 2018 ), tourism and poverty alleviation (Spenceley and Meyer 2017 ), urban tourism (Rogerson 2013 ), ecotourism (Mbaiwa 2008 ) among others. While these studies provide in-depth analyses and insight into Africa’s tourism, there has not been an attempt to engage in other evolving issues with the potential to change the complexion of the region’s tourism sector.

On the international scale, there has been a sustained research on issues influencing the unpredictable dynamics of the international tourism ecosystem that hogged the global limelight, ranging from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, Tsunami; SARs epidemic in Asia (Gaetano 2009 ; Schuurman 2019 ; Qui et al. 2018 ; Zeng et al. 2005 ; Bongkosh 2006 ; Tang et al. 2020 ); Asian financial crisis, the current Covid-2019 virus, Ebola outbreak in western Africa (Song and Lin 2010 ; Wang 2009 ; Gossling et al. 2020 ; Al-Tawfiqef et al. 2014 ; Maphanga and Henama 2019 ; Kongoley 2015 ); political conflicts in the Middle east; Icelandic ashes, the disappearance of Malaysian airplane (Al-Shorman et al. 2016 ; Steiner 2017 ; Benediktsson et al. 2011 ; Heimisdottir et al. 2019 ; Weng 2014 ; Fan et al. 2019 ); CITES’s trophy hunting ban, as well as climate change induced extreme weather patterns like hurricanes, cyclones and heat waves (Prideaux et al. 2009 ; Njerekai and Mabika 2016 ; Baker 2010 ; Pandy 2017 ; Moore 2010 ). Whilst acknowledging the diverse and richness of the current international tourism body of literature, the current study argues that very little attempts have been made to explore the policy and product development implications of the constructs of BRICS, terrorism, ageing population and trophy hunting in the context of Africa. Perspectives on these evolving issues from emerging tourist destinations contexts seem neglected in the academic gaze, yet in contemporary times these are the issues increasingly influencing dynamics in the tourism space.

None the less studies offering a regional perspective from emerging tourist destination context are limited; with existing studies only investigating specific segments of the tourism industry in Africa, for example, township tourism (Boyens 2010 ); conference tourism (Donaldson 2013 ); communities and trans-frontier parks (Ferreira 2006 ), and green guest houses (Hoogendorn et al. 2015 ), with very little attempt to relate these to market shifts.

Though there is a substantial research on tourism, the tourism marketplace, remains dynamic. Debyser ( 2014 ) analysed the challenges and policy responses to the tourism sector by the EU, whilst Tolkach et al. ( 2016 ) explored current and emerging tourism trends in the Asia Pacific region through a content analysis. Tolkach et al. ( 2016 ) study found that economic growth, favourable political environment and improved infrastructure were sustaining continual growth of the sector in the region. Furthermore, Maria-Irina ( 2017 ) examined tourism in the new member states of the European Union in which the focus was on the importance of tourism, factors and trends that affect the industry within the EU community. Still, Weston et al. ( 2019b ) provided an overview of the current state of affairs in European tourism, considering the latest developments, identifying future challenges and emerging opportunities. The study established that changes in tourist behaviour and generational issues were significant challenges. Even though there is a burgeoning tourism studies in the African contexts for the past 2 decades, for example, Ferreira ( 2004 ), Donaldson and Ferreira ( 2007 ), Ferreira et al. ( 2007 ), Booyens and Visser ( 2010 ), Rogerson ( 2011 ), Zhou ( 2014 ), Scholtz and Slabbert ( 2016 ) and Tichaawa ( 2017 ); still these researches apart from being disproportionately too low to tourism researches in Europe and The Americas, they have been consistently oblivious of the quartet of BRICS, trophy hunting, ageing population and terrorism as critical shifts in the tourism landscape, hence leaving a theoretical gap in emerging tourist regions like Africa. To put the issue into perspective, studies examining dynamics in the international tourism industry since 1950 in the context of Africa are limited. A case in point is the study by Signe ( 2018 ) who examined Africa’s tourism potential, renewed trends, key drivers, opportunities and strategies. The study found that there was huge potential due to the continent’s richness in natural resources and cultural heritage; and that west African countries had introduced a visa policy to enable free movement of people across member states. Furthermore, the study established that tourism was important to Africa as it was driving economic growth and job creation, infrastructure development, generating foreign exchange. Globalisation was the key driver of tourism. Challenges of poor infrastructure and weak institutions were cited, whilst opportunities were that Africa was the best candidate for investment. Similarly, Diakite et al. ( 2020 )’s study was country-specific. They examined tourism trends, opportunities and challenges in Guinea in which it was established that Ebola was a major challenge. In addition, Jaensson ( 2014 ) examined potential for tourism development in sub-Saharan Africa in cooperation with Sweden. The study results showed that the sector is important in poverty reduction, foreign exchange earnings, employment and economic growth.

Still, Zhou ( 2014 ) analysed recent trends and future prospects of tourism in southern Africa sub-region. The study’s focus was on tourism development and growth at sub-regional level, and the study found that the need for economic diversity, job creation, foreign currency generation were factors motivating southern Africa countries to develop the tourism sector. Hosting of mega events, establishment of nature parks and aggressive marketing campaigns were identified as key elements allowing for the resurgence of tourist arrivals in the sub-region. Dieke ( 2013 ) examined a production-nexus of tourism in sub-Saharan Africa. Dieke ( 2020 ) analysed tourism issues and prospects in Africa. The study focused on the current state of tourism to and within Africa, highlighting key themes and issues that confront the industry across the continent. The results of the study showed that human resources have had consequences for the sector, resulting in the further marginalisation of Africa in the global pleasure periphery. Taken together, these studies revealed that understanding the dynamics in the international tourism arena is critical for destination managers because it helps in terms of forecasting travel patterns, demand for tourism products, growth projections and investing in new product development, investment into new markets, trends among a host of others. Furthermore, from the analysis of previous studies it seems researches making a direct application of these critical shifts to a particular or specific emerging tourism region like Africa are lacking. Though there is an emerging stream of literature focusing on various facets of Africa’s tourism industry, (see Ferreira 2006 ; Boyens 2010 ; Slabbert and De Plussis 2013 ; Donaldson 2013 ; Rogerson 2014 ; Tichaawa 2017 ; Chiutsi and Saarinen 2017 ; Musavengane 2018 ; Mbaiwa 2018 ), there is a general paucity of literature regarding how the dynamics obtaining on the broader international tourism arena would mean for Africa’s tourism industry and how the continent should respond to such critical shifts at operational and policy making level, tactically and strategically. It is a compelling case to investigate how such dynamics inform tourism policy formulation, inform investment options into product development, inform investment into new markets, and inform re-calibration of marketing strategies; which in the context of Africa remain mostly unknown.

Alvarez and Campos ( 2014 ) and Woyo ( 2018 ) posit that tourism is sensitive to political, economic, ecological, technological, legal and socio-economic environment. However, research examining such critical shifts in the broader global tourism environment and their attendant implications to emerging tourist regions like Africa is limited.

Overview of international tourism and its socio-economic significance

The post world war two (WWII), boom factors chiefly the advent of jet engine, political peace and economic stability, dual family income, inclusive tours, coupled with ICTs and education, generally laid the ground work for the growth and development of the tourism industry (Bhatia 2001 ; Boniface and Cooper 2001 ; Lockwood and Medlick 2001 ). However, whilst these factors are still relevant, the tourism industry has mutated as new variables evolve, presenting a new set of opportunities and challenges for the tourism industry requiring a different approach from tourist destinations. International tourist arrivals world-wide grew over 1.4 billion in 2018, 1.5 billion in 2019 and most likely the threshold of 1.8 billion travellers is now likely to be exceeded in advance of 2030 (OECD 2020 ). Globally, international travel receipts reached $146.2 billion in 2018, and globally expenditures on travel have more than tripled since the turn of the century, rising to 1.5 trillion in 2018 (UNWTO 2019b , 2020 ).

Tourism is crucial to the global economy, and is regarded as a trillion dollar industry, contributing immensely to GDP, as well as employing one in every 11 people (UNWTO 2018a , b ). Tourism contributes to the world economy GDP directly and indirectly through provision of full time jobs, it has a multiplier effect on down and upstream economic sub-sectors (WTTC 2017 ; Zhou 2019 ; Musavengane 2018 ; Mbaiwa et al. 2019 ; Saarinen et al. 2009 ; Nyahunzvi 2015 ). The recent developments in the broader global economic environment underpinned by the emergence of BRICS, an ageing population demographic, calls for CITES reform cum ban on trophy hunting, and the scourge of terrorism are collectively recognised by the academia, tourism fraternity and policy makers as shaping the global tourism growth agenda and its development trajectory dynamics in the twenty-first century. Despite the severity and weight of these evolving issues, the global tourism industry is poised to grow in stature. While this is the case, there seems to be limited academic rigour on such phenomena, given that the available scholarship on global tourism industry dimension has not adequately explored the extent to which individual factors like the BRICS, population demographics, trophy hunting debate are shaping and influencing the global tourism industry growth trajectory.

The tourism industry is one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy, and the sector is a benefactor of the globalisation process. In 1950 there were 25 million international tourists arrivals, in 2000 there were 1 billion tourists, in 2020 it is envisaged that 1.6 billion international tourists would engage in touristic activities, and further still in 2030 the figure is forecast to hit the 1.8 billion (UNWTO 2010 , 2019a , b ). However, despite these impressive aggregate arrivals figure, the sector has to grapple with a milieu of opportunities and threats born out of the ever evolving tourism market place.

On the employment front, tourism is extremely labour intensive and a significant source of direct, indirect and induced employment. It is among the world’s top creators of jobs requiring varying degrees of skills and allow for quick entry into the workforce for youths, women and migrant workers and the UNTWO indicated that the tourism sector provided 296 million jobs in 2019 (WTTC 2018 ; OECD 2018b ; UNWTO 2019a , b ). With over 1.2 billion people world-wide crossing international borders each year, tourism is increasingly becoming a major source of growth, employment and income for many countries including many of the world’s developing countries. Tourism has the potential to contribute to all of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) found within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including SDG 8 on inclusive and sustainable economic growth, SDG 11 on cities and human settlements, SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production. This underlines the need to rightly place tourism as one of the key pillars of socio-economic development.

The World Bank ( 2014 ) and UNWTO ( 2018a , b ) posit that tourism will be one of the main drivers of economic growth in Africa over the next decade. An increasing number of countries, for example, South Africa, Kenya and Rwanda henceforth, have made tourism a central pillar of their economic development and reform program, and have made significant economic strides using tourism as a plank to boost their economies. Page ( 2018 ) and Coulibary ( 2018 ) concurred that tourism is an escalator of development. However, in order for Africa to reap tourism benefits, the region has to align its tourism offerings to marketplace dynamics.

Despite Africa’s documented perennial challenges, curtailing the growth and expansion of the tourism industry, that encompasses infrastructure underdevelopment, access issues, lack of direct flights, little appropriate promotional marketing strategies and investment budgets, portrayal of Africa as a land of war, disease, poverty, hunger, anguish and desperation by foreign mainstream media, 67 million tourists visited the region in the region, generating $194.2 billion worth of revenue (Diakite et al. 2020 ).

Tourism in Africa: socio-economic significance on African economies

Henceforth, tourism is a powerful vehicle for economic growth and job creation all over the world. Tourism’s main comparative advantage over other sectors is that visitor expenditures have a “flow-through” or catalytic effect across the economy in terms of product and employment creation (Christie et al. 2013 ; Schubert et al. 2011 ). Given the multi-sectoral nature of tourism, its success is dependent upon the external and internal dynamics on the environment. The potential for tourism growth in Africa is significant, anchored not only on the region’s abundant pristine wildlife coupled with expansive beaches, but also on its cultural heritage. Continental Africa is poised to realise $262 billion in revenue from 1 billion people travelling internationally. At first glance, it may appear that its smooth sailing for Africa, however, on closer inspection, such a bright future projection is made without taking into account the critical shifts panning out in the tourism market place. Africa’s adaptive capacity in relation to the risks and opportunities posed by market dynamics will ensure the success of its tourism sector. The fact that the BRICS, ageing population, terrorism and trophy hunting issues are taking root in the marketplace it is about time that emerging tourist destinations tourism starts a serious conversation to establish the implications of these dynamics on the tourism system.

It is no doubt that Africa has had an impressive average growth rate of her travel and tourism, which trends have continued into the twenty-first century, bolstered by a period of impressive economic growth and improvements in political stability and opportunities across the continent. The African Development Bank (AfDB) indicated that in 2015, Africa recorded 62.5 million visitors, contributed 9.1 million jobs directly and generated $39.2 billion international tourism receipts (AfDB 2016 , p. 4). Looking into the future, there is substantial room for growth in Africa’s travel and tourism market, particularly in light of current sectoral growth patterns, as international tourists are increasingly interested in developing countries as travel destinations, provide the region properly align its tourism sector to dynamics obtaining in the marketplace.

Tourism is a major global economic sector that is undergoing tremendous growth in emerging economies and is often touted as salient for the development and poverty alleviation in developing countries (Scott et al. 2012 ).

Tourism has been embraced largely due to its employment and foreign currency generative capacity, as it continues to make a substantial contribution to the economies of many countries around the world (Zhou 2014 ; Mkono et al. 2020 ). With the exception of 2020, each year, the tourism industry has outrun projected international tourist arrivals riding on the back of liberalisation of the aerospace, globalisation, and rising income levels. It is forecast that if the current momentum is maintained, international tourist arrivals are expected to reach 1.8 billion by 2030 (UNWTO 2020 ). Tourism is an important economic sector to many African economies in terms of its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), employment and trade (UNCTD 2017 ). At a time when the region is building its productive capacities, consolidating regional integration and pursuing economic diversification, tourism in Africa continues to grow. Apart from stimulating employment creation and enticing investment, tourism also contributes towards the preservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.

At continental level, the African Union’s Agenda 2063 recognise tourism’s importance in driving Africa’s socio- economic development and structural transformation through job creation. The Economic Development in Africa Report (2017) reported that tourism can be an engine for inclusive growth and economic development and that it can complement development strategies aimed at fostering economic diversification and structural transformation within the right policy context. However, conspicuously missing in the report is any reference to terrorism, ageing population, trophy hunting, and BRICS, and the extent to which they threaten the envisaged economic gains. To achieve this Africa must be cognisant of changes taking place in the global tourism market place. Tourism marketplace dynamics provide greater scope for the region to boost international travel into Africa, leveraging on Africa’s comparative advantage of its renowned tourism resource base. Market dynamics will inevitably alter the competitiveness of tourist destinations as well as the suitability of major tourism market segments. It is evident that all tourist destinations will need to adapt to market dynamics, whether to minimise risks or to capitalise on new opportunities associated with the constructs of BRICS, terrorism, trophy hunting and ageing population.

Methodology

Data were gathered through document analysis, combing archival information and expert opinions canvassed from key informants drawn from the broad travel and tourism industry who were knowledgeable about the dynamics and trends of the international tourism industry from Africa’s perspective. Regional market shares, and tourist arrivals from 1950 to 2020, UNWTO forecasts and projections were employed.

Key interview informants were qualified as tourism experts on the basis of their extensive working experience directly in various sub-sectors of the tourism industry at regional and international level, that is, hotels, tour operations, conventions, NTO as regional and international tourism markets, tourism attachés in charge of overseas tourism markets, tourism market development, planning and forecasting. Informants’ intimate knowledge on international tourism and market dynamics coupled with extensive working experience in the hospitality and tourism sector earned them the expert status. In order to participate in the study, respondents had to have over 20 years working experience in the tourism sector at senior management level in the marketing department in charge of regional and overseas tourism markets. To widen the pool of informants, the study included responses of tourism experts including representatives from government, international organisations and other tourism industry related government departments selected through snowball technique. This was also supported by a review of recent literature and data.

Resultantly, a total of 20 interviews were administered out of a total population of 30 potential informants (Krejciie and Morgan 1970 ). A pilot study was done before the actual data collection to ensure the comprehensiveness, readability and clarity.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 25 purposively sampled respondents. Interview session lasted an average of 30 min. Interviews were discontinued after data saturation was reached. The study was based on predominantly a series of open-ended, semi-structured interviews conducted with ten female, and fifteen males purposively selected from tourism representative bodies. Semi-structured interviews were chosen because they allowed the researcher to probe for additional information and to seek clarification. The above is in line with the assertion that semi-structured interviews offer insights “into respondents’ memories and explanations of why things have come to be what they are, as well as descriptions of current problems and aspirations” (Stake and Torrance 2005 , p. 33). The interviews that were conducted were restricted to people who gave their informed consent and each interview lasted on average 30 min. Items on the interview schedule were informed by literature and prior studies related to tourism growth in other touristic regions. The research participants were asked a broad range of questions in order to gain an understanding of the interplay between the global tourism industry and dynamics in the broader global operating environment in the context of Africa. The line of questioning explored, key variables driving tourism at global and regional level, critical shifts in the tourism market place influencing tourism development, tourist regions’ responsive strategies to market dynamics, implications of contemporary market dynamics to emerging tourist destinations among other aspects. Data were recorded manually (Saldana 2013 ). The interpretation and analysis of the qualitative materials was an on-going process that proved inseparable from the field work. In the field, after each interview, the data was analysed to inform subsequent interviews and to capture preliminary emergent themes as recommended by Mertens ( 2005 ). After fieldwork, the interview material was later, thematically analysed to reveal emergent themes, following Miles et al ( 2013 ) and Veal’s ( 2006 ) guidelines. In line with qualitative research, interviews were discontinued when theoretical saturation or data redundancy was reached (Jennings 2005 ); in this case five out of the 25 interviews held contained no new themes. The next section provides a detailed and concurrent presentation and discussion of the dominant themes that emerged during the interactions with the research participants. Four themes were identified in the analysis of the qualitative materials that were obtained from the interviews. These were BRICS, senior tourism market, CITES’ trophy hunting debate, and the scourge of terrorism. Each one of the five themes is discussed below.

Results and discussion

Recurrent themes which emerged from respondents’ narratives were grouped into five key themes, which were; BRICS, ageing tourism market, trophy hunting and terrorism.

Formation of BRICS economic grouping

A number of respondents found that the BRICs economic grouping was indeed a game changer in the tourism marketplace. BRICS being a post 2000 phenomenon was set to establish a new economic world order, competing with the G7 countries which traditionally dominated the tourism sector. In particular, informants described BRICS as revolutionary in tilting the balance of economic prowess in favour of the developing countries. This is a critical milestone in the historical development of the tourism industry in the sense that for the first time the global south is playing a significant role in the global tourism affairs. In light of such market realities and as a way of going forward it implies Africa should now improve its tourism infrastructure to match world class standards ahead of increased tourists from BRICS. Africa’s tourism product should also be now tailor made to accommodate new a new market with a new set of preferences, tastes and travel habits/behaviour different from the traditional western markets. This echoes the sentiments of UNWTO ( 2018a , b ) and Znojek ( 2012 ) that going forward emerging economies will drive the key economic sectors at global level, including tourism. To illustrate, respondents pointed out that China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa are increasingly emerging as key tourism source markets ahead of the traditional markets of western.

In contemporary times, countries from the global south, buoyed by an uptick in per capita income are poised to become leading contenders for the first time in international tourism growth matrix despite being insignificant in the broader global tourism industry in the 1950s.

Another insight revealed by respondents was that since WWII, the global financial sphere was been dominated by the Bretton-woods institutions, however, this was changing with the rise of the Asian Tigers, coupled with rapid economic transformation in the emerging markets fronted by BRICS. Tourism is driven by an economic boom, a characteristic feature punctuating the BRICS. Brazil of South America, Russia of Eastern Europe, India and China of Asia Pacific, and South Africa from southern Africa constitute the BRICS gamut. On the horizon, the five-nation state grouping is determined to set up a multilateral financial institution modelled alongside the century old International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) as a way of disrupting the status quo in the global financial services market systems. The implications of the BRICS bank after its eventual full consummation would be the source of funding of tourism developmental projects for the emerging markets. Such projects would be prioritised in terms of funding without the bureaucracy and exclusionary tendencies synonymous with the IMF and WB. It also imply that nation states from the global South would easily access loans as seed capital to shore up and stimulate economic development which will later on spur economic prosperity and eventually boost tourism. The birth of BRICS is changing the face of the international tourism in much the same way as the boom factors of the 1950s–60s did through enhanced tourism access, free flow of international tourism traffic and capital without restrictions, enticing of FDI, and boosting of demand in favour of the emerging markets.

Favourable implications on Africa are the characteristic features punctuating the BRICs which support tourism, that is, fastest growing economies, rapidly expanding middle classes and promising domestic markets, as well as the potential to overtake the G7 as the world’s best performing economies by 2040 (Pop 2014 ). Given the positive relationship between economic performance and tourism, this would mean that a huge boost for the BRICS nation state’s respective tourism industries with a potential spill over to the rest of African region. The emerging markets of the BRICS countries have long been highlighted as the future power houses of the travel and tourism industry. Abdou and Adawy ( 2018 ) contend that BRICS countries are the leading economies in the world as they are expected to cause a global economic shift and have power more than Europe economies and US in the near future.

Informants were excited by prospects of China and India morphing into citadels of commerce at global level. The BRICS premise is very significant to the tourism industry of emerging countries in several ways. China and India are set to mutate into hubs of manufactured goods and services globally, while Brazil and Russia will become leading suppliers of raw material. The BRICS is set to become the seat of influence on tourism affairs, from being the leading global tourism market, leading tourist destination, leading recipient of tourism related FDI unlike the period in the early 1960s. This finding is in line with projections made by the IMF and WB that in future China and India will become global centres of commerce and trade. One official had this to say:

Certainly, BRICS will upset the applecart, already there is a seismic shift in the tourism marketplace, where we see traditional tourist destinations becoming less and less popular, whilst emerging markets are shining

Currently, BRICS account for more than 40% of the world’s population, over 50% of world economic growth, 53% of world foreign investment (Zhao 2011 ; Znojek 2012 ), and has been deemed as a platform for the emerging economies to share a stronger voice on the international stage. To be specific, Brazil occupies a prominent place in world affairs, and is one of the world’s ten biggest economies, India is an emerging global power, South Africa is equally a regional power with global aspirations and has taken a more assertive continental role. It is Africa’s largest economy and regarded as a doyen of democracy, whilst at the same time it is a key player in the region’s stability (Carothers and Young 2011 ).

BRICS’ long haul objective is to accelerate the shift towards a multi-polar international order and to gain an adequate presence for emerging economies in reformed global institutions. Unlike before when the global tourism industry was dominated by the G7 countries, which are essentially proxies from advanced economies, the emerging markets of the BRICS have thus been regarded as the future powerhouses of the travel and tourism industry as evidenced by the increasing trend where upon the BRICS feature prominently in the World Travel Market Industry Report (World Travel Market 2012 ).

On inbound tourism China is increasingly becoming a leading tourist destination at global level, Brazil at second place challenging traditional leaders like France, Spain, and the US. To its credit, BRICS is well endowed with natural and cultural tourism resources, massive infrastructural developments in the way of air and ground transport, protected land areas, and richest fauna in the world. This gives it comparative advantage over the traditional G7 countries. In essence, this is driving the global tourism trends to gravitate towards the emerging markets as opposed to the traditional western markets.

Africa should take a cue on how BRICS is also shaping a new narrative in the event tourism space. The increasing importance of mega events particularly sporting events such as the Olympics and the FIFA world cups provide a window of opportunity for highly significant upgrades in infrastructures, human resources, products and quality. South Africa’s 2010 FIFA world cup was a resounding success, Olympics Winter Games in Russia Federation and FIFA world cup 2018 in Russia, FIFA world cup in 2014 in Brazil and the Olympics Summer Games of 2016 helped putting the BRICS on the global tourism map. There is no doubt that the growth of the global tourism industry is being driven by emerging economies, that is, BRICS. The present dynamics confirm that unlike in the twentieth century where economic growth was mainly driven by the developed world, in the twenty-first century, the growth engine has relocated to the emerging and developing markets, particularly the BRICS.

As per capita incomes increase, the services sector grows relative to the other sectors of the economy, and this dynamic is important as the BRICS countries are planning to go from middle to high income status. Resultantly, many countries world-wide are now actively courting tourist arrivals from the BRICS in particular China. Given its large population, and the fact that a growing percentage of people can now afford, both in terms of time and money to travel overseas has had a major impact on the global tourist market. Globally, on the economic and tourism front, there is a scramble for the BRICS as they represent tomorrow’s tourism sunrise economy. There is huge appetite world-wide to invest in the BRICS’ tourism sector, which in itself is an endorsement in terms of the shift of balance of power in tourism demand generating markets. The BRICS have indeed become a force to reckon with in international tourism affairs in the period post WWII just like the G7 countries. China and India, for example, buoyed by the population demographic factor are set to tilt the balance of power towards the Asia–Pacific as both a generator and recipient of outbound and inbound international tourism traffic. As such, BRICS have emerged as an important player in the global economic sectors, tourism included, with its services export growing faster than the developed countries. At the same time BRICS are generating an increasing number of tourists as per capita income rise and a relatively big share of this increase would be spent on tourism. In this milieu, the over trodden global north tourist destinations have now matured hence the focus has turned on exotic tourist destinations which are far flung from the beaten track.

Ageing tourism market

The majority of the respondents suggested that the elderly population presents a market of particular relevance to a large number of industries for its high purchasing power, comparatively higher than younger groups, more so to the tourism industry. It was apparent from the response that the tourism sector was emerging as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the ageing process as a result of changes in the lifestyle of the population. This finding conforms to Alen et al. ( 2015 ) and Cooper et al. ( 2007 ) who similarly established that the ageing baby boom generation was slowly becoming one of the most important markets in the tourism context. Indeed, the ageing of the baby boom generation marks an important milestone in the development history of the tourism sector in light of their purchasing power. Schroder and Widman ( 2007 ) deemed the senior tourism market demographic change as one of the biggest growth and most important markets in the tourism industry, turning it into the engine of growth for tourism. This is in consonance with the UNWTO ( 2018a , b )’s prediction that by 2050 there will be more than 2 billion international travellers aged 60 and above compared to 593 million in 1999 (Patterson 2006 ). Such demographic shifts will affect the structure of tourism supply and demand at regional level. The implication on Africa about the increasingly ageing population is that market tastes and vacation habits will change. The senior market clientele is experienced, more discerning and high spenders. This corroborates Glover and Prideaux ( 2009 )’s observation that population ageing affects the future choice of tourism activities and destinations, and ultimately future tourism growth projections like trends, patterns and traffic. As the global tourism market gravitates towards the senior market, so does its tastes, preferences and holiday patterns. This is in synch with Weaver and Oppermann ( 2000 ) and Salt ( 2003 ) who support the view that demand for tourism products and experiences change with age. The senior tourism market is keen to travel to exotic tourist destinations like Africa calling for an overhaul of Africa’s tourism product. Individual factors such as family status, employment, education, health status, travel experience and generational values change with age, henceforth tourist destinations have to pay particular attention to these and adjust product offerings accordingly (Glover and Prideaux 2000).

An ageing population implies that the demand for authentic tourism products and experiences most in emerging regions like Africa aimed at the senior tourism market or older population is likely to increase both in actual number and in proportion of all holidays as the number of older people grows. The senior tourism market, given its old age, takes more leisure trips more frequently courtesy of the availability of time and higher discretionary income. It is therefore instructive that if emerging tourist destinations are to remain competitive and successful they need to be aware of the differences that may be apparent in the demand profiles of specific generation gaps. From Africa’s perspective, the battle for the competitiveness and growth of the global tourism market share will be fought and won on the basis of them being capable to appeal to multi-generation markets. Tourist destinations in the global tourism industry vigilant to tourism market shift on tourism demand based on population demographics are poised to reap the benefits.

Prideaux et al. ( 2000 ) posit that the inability of tourist destinations from recalibrating current range of tourism products and services to reflect the aspirations and consumption patterns of senior market may result in a slow decline in visitor numbers in the coming years. Ideally, tourist destinations world- wide recognise that a change in demand is underway hence the need to start working on modifying the tourism product that resonates with an ageing population. In short, tourism demand would be a function of population demographics. An understanding of where the world and tourism market is heading is crucial for identifying opportunities that are brought about by that change.

Embedded in ageing are health issues such as hypertension, obesity, and heart diseases which increase in prevalence along with age. Ageing population equally has a business and financial dimension, that is, the elderly are better educated and wealthier than previous generations (Callister 2006 ). The elderly tourism market is keen to give back to the community or cultures they visit, they therefore combine tourism with volunteer work, aptly labelled as voluntourism (Furlong 2006 ; Thornhill and Martin 2006 ). The tourism industry must ensure that appropriate facilities are available to meet the needs of these consumers. Whilst developing countries are still comparatively characterised by young population, industrialised countries are confronted with an ageing population, and low birth rates (UN 2011 ; Goldin 2010 ).

CITES’ trophy hunting debate

Informants were unanimous that the tourism industry experienced an unprecedented poaching and decimation of wildlife on an industrial scale in the period post WWII, which was a cause of concern as it sends shockwaves on the tourism marketplace. The situation is grim in emerging markets mostly Africa.

Respondents were unanimous that the tide needed to be tamed as it was threatening the very foundation of tourism hence putting the future of the tourism sector at stake. The above sad state of affairs in emerging tourist regions fed into a post WWII tension increasingly mounting between the global south and global north on the emotive issue of trophy hunting, which falls under the auspices of CITES. Another respondent seemed to indicate that trophy hunting was more relevant to Africa given that the region’s tourism industry is anchored on wildlife. It was interesting to note that the draw card of emerging markets’ tourism industry was now at the centre of the contemporary global stand-off pitting the global north against the global south. Perspectives from Africa show that the region is much concerned about the power play on over-regulation, embargoing trophy hunting, and preservation of such wildlife in light of limited budgets characterising most African countries. Ironically the consumers of Africa’s trophy hunting products are tourists who come from the global north who are lobbying for a total ban. This creates an awkward position for Africa.

What this implies to Africa is that the region has to adjust and endeavour to co-exist with the global tourism family in the sense that if the region pulls out of CITES it risks a serious backlash from partakers of wildlife experiences. The current state of the tourism industry has been predicated on the huge wildlife resource base sprinkled across the breadth and length of tourist regions. However, post WWII upheavals in the wildlife sector characterised by increased poaching, alienation of local communities’ rights to the utilisation of wildlife resources, blanket imposition of a moratorium on trophy hunting and a plethora of other issues are set to continue fuelling a bruising contestation regarding the sustainable use of wildlife in the broader context of tourism development (Mkono 2018 ). Consensus on how the contentious and divisive trophy hunting issue should be handled to the full satisfaction of all CITES members and secure the sustainable future development of the tourism industry is still a challenge. Whilst emerging tourist regions like Africa feel hard done by CITES stance, with sentiments indicating that the issue seriously undermine wildlife conservation efforts, and ultimately the tourism experiences in nature parks and conservancies, it is critical to have a holistically approach on the issue.

Indeed, exotic tourism regions like Africa are well known for their pristine wildlife sanctuaries where tourists encounter with nature. World-wide the tourism phenomenon has been driven by flora and fauna, however given the increasing rate at which poaching and depletion of wildlife resources are happening, CITES justifiably came on the scene to regulate the use of wildlife within the tenets of sustainable tourism. To this effect CITES outlawed trophy hunting which arguably used to generate funds for the conservation and management of wildlife resources especially in emerging markets like Africa and Asia–Pacific. Subsequently, there has been a raging debate on trophy hunting which has divided global opinion. The future of the global tourism hinges on the reform of CITES’s stance on trophy hunting. Arguments proffered mostly by the emerging markets revolve around the urgent for a review of trophy hunting ban to avoid what they claim an impending wildlife catastrophe since the wildlife population has ballooned to unsustainable levels as a result of a moratorium imposed on trophy hunting. Yet on the other side of the spectrum, the global north is advancing the argument that a ban on trophy hunting should remain in force into the foreseeable future. The stalemate would definitely impact on global tourism trends and patterns, more so on Africa in a negative way.

Trophy hunting has thus become a delicate matter in the international tourism discourse since it can rally nation states towards the conservation of wildlife resources which are the bedrock of the tourism sector. Trophy hunting is a topical issue in international tourism affairs, so much that a divided global family of nations on it foments disillusionment, smacks fragmented approaches in fighting the poaching scourge and eventually lead to the decimation or a complete loss of the wildlife resource which is a key driver of the sector. Global consensus on trophy hunting and the way forward between the global south and north will define the new course of tourism growth in the foreseeable future. Without wildlife resources there is no tourism sector to talk about hence this is critical at this juncture. Poaching remains the greatest threat to the integrity of natural sites globally.

Terrorism and interconnectedness of the globe

Results showed that in the contemporary globalised village, emerging tourist destinations like Africa are no longer immune to the scourge of terrorism that traditionally was more pronounced in the western countries and North America. However, respondents indicated that Africa is increasingly becoming a target of terrorist, citing an example of Kenya in East Africa; Tunisia in North Africa. What it therefore implies is that it can no longer be business as usual but in essence emerging markets should start investing in ports of entry screening technologies and reviewing visa regimes with a view of strengthening security protocols.

Safety of international tourists is of paramount importance, hence this should be guaranteed. Future global tourism trends will be defined and influenced by the safety records of tourist regions, as well as their response systems to terrorist attacks. This finding corroborates Paraskevasa and Arendell ( 2007 ), Hoffman ( 1998 ) and Chalk ( 1997 ) who established that tourists rank safety and security highly when choosing vacation holiday. Given the ever increasing rate at which conflicts are erupting in emerging markets in particular and at global level in general as a result of the increasing chasm between the rich and poor, it is important that tourist regions reflect deeply on terrorism threats and the instability it poses to the development and growth of the international tourism industry. It is apparent that transnational tourism organisation like the UNWTO and WTTC quickly issue out advisories dissuading potential tourists from visiting destinations prone to terrorist activities, as they value the safety and security of vacationers. While at face value this may sound akin to destination de-marketing, tourists’ safety and security is of utmost priority. The burden lies with destinations to ensure the safety of visitors. Peace and security at tourist destinations would remain the single most important factor to guide tourism development going into the future. Globally, as revealed above, the security situation remains precarious, impacting negatively on tourism growth projections.

With such a remarkable shift, it therefore calls for a coordinated global approach in the fight against terrorism, a serious threat to tourism, which has become a global menace embedded in a modern society characterised by extremes of rich and poor in both the developed and the underdeveloped countries. Terrorism has been targeting popular tourism spaces, and given the lack lustre security systems in place in emerging markets there is need for collaborative efforts to tame the wave of terrorism in order to create a better world where tourism can thrive. Africa should realise that the interconnectedness of nation states celebrated under the auspices of a global village has opened up countries to global risks and vulnerabilities like terrorism, contagious diseases, for example, Covd-19 virus. This has huge implication on tourist regions’ immigration and border control issues, visa regimes, health issues with far reaching consequences for Africa’s tourism sector. Taken together, these issues are at the centre of curtailing the free flow of tourists. Emerging tourist destinations are in a dilemma on whether they should opt for a protectionist-cautious stance in terms of the free flow of people or a more liberal approach. Perspectives from Africa hold that improving security is a challenge, especially creating a more seamless experience and staying ahead of evolving threats is a true test facing the sector in the period post 2020; balancing the traveller’s safety with traveller experience will continue to define the challenge into the foreseeable future.

Respondents confirmed that as tourist spaces in exotic destinations become more popular with millions of tourists trouping, it becomes apparent that tourists are increasingly becoming easy targets of terrorism. The implication for emerging markets like Africa is that terrorism is now ubiquitous, as illustrated by a spike in terrorist incidences. Given the ever widening chasm between the political elites and the poor, fundamental different religious views and political opinions, these are fuelling terrorism irrespective of geographical location. Since time immemorial, tourism has been known as a peace sector. Another perspective is that whilst the end of WWII was generally interpreted as marking the dawn of political peace at global level and was hailed as a seed bed to nurture tourism development, it is increasingly being realised it was an illusion. To date global peace is becoming elusive because of indiscriminate acts of terrorism. Given the global publicity and media attention attendant to terrorist attacks on tourist destinations, the scourge dents the tourism phenomenon, especially for emerging tourism destinations whose safety and security systems are regarded as weak or inadequate. Indeed, the tourism phenomenon has been known to be resilient but the negative publicity associated with terrorist attacks adversely affect tourism trends and patterns. Terrorism has the potential to destroy tourism overnight despite its gigantic size.

The present day society is become heavily infested with terrorist groups who are increasingly targeting, attacking, kidnapping and killing international tourists (Stafford et al. 2002 ). Adeloye and Carr ( 2019 ) argue that terrorist attacks on tourists serve as unpleasant reminders of how fragile and vulnerable the tourism industry is to terrorism. The UNWTO ( 2018a , b ) advocates for tourist destinations to be proactive and institute quick response or rescue strategies in the aftermath of an attack. Alongside this, tourist destinations should have in place destination recovery plans and marketing strategies to restore market confidence in the post attack period. Terrorism influences tourists’ perceptions of risk and their resultant travel decisions.

In the twenty-first century the notorious terrorist groups threatening world peace and stability are the Islamic State, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, Taliban, Al-Queda, and Al-Shabaab to mention a few. The tourism sector, economic growth and development of countries can be seriously threatened if tourist destinations increasingly become scenes of terrorist attacks. To this effect, tourist destinations need to invest in security protocols, which would put them in a stead to recover in a faster manner, provided the protocols are well created and implemented correctly (World Economic Forum 2015 ). Crisis protocols, recovery strategies, and strong emergency plans are indispensible for tourist destinations to recover fast and should become buzz words in future tourism development trajectories. Despite the resilience of the tourism sector, recurrent incidents of violence and terrorism at global level, increased insecurity and safety of tourists, as well as ruined perceptions deter potential tourists from fully and freely partaking in tourism. The scourge of terrorism imposes restrictions to visiting tourist destinations prone to attacks, henceforth matters of tourist safety and security are very critical when it comes to the future of the tourism industry.

Terrorism makes the tourism sector vulnerable and fragile making its future growth prediction uncertain (Abadie and Gardeazabal 2003 ). Conventional literature show that terrorism disrupts the entire tourism value chain where upon key stakeholders like travel agents would not actively promote tourist destinations perceived as being unsafe. Terrorist attacks have continually degraded and undermined the popularity of tourist destinations. In the aftermath of terrorist attacks, the tourism industry experiences significant down turn, the kidnapping of tourists by terrorist’s network groups also frightens tourists away.

From Africa’s viewpoint, terrorism’s effects on tourism are multi-faceted: a decrease in the number of tourist arrivals, reduction in FDI, cost of reconstruction of tourist facilities, safety and security upgrades costs, and increased marketing costs to attract visitors. This is in line with what was established by Barth et al. ( 2006 ) that there is a very strong connection between terrorism and tourism, tourist sites which are targeted by terrorists have their social order and economic stability greatly shaken. The tourism sector is increasingly becoming a target of terrorists; the resonance being that the tourism sector is the main source of income of many countries, so by damaging it the core function of the economic basis of the nation stops working, destroying tourism attractions is the best way for the terrorists to get their message delivered through-out media coverage, thus getting the attention they need, and the tourism sector has not focused on security matters (Tarlow 2003 ). Tarlow ( 2003 ) emphasise that security plus service and value for money will become the basis for twenty-first century services. Terrorism encompasses the murder of high profile journalists, and media personalities which are covered by the international media contributing to the negative image of tourist destinations. Potential tourists see such cases as indicators of lack of safety; this also shows that the security system at global level is fragmented and not sufficient to ensure the security of citizens. Threats on global peace will remain a major issue hampering tourism growth, and stifle tourist destinations to realise full potential for foreign visitors and under utilisation of tourist attractions. In the absence of safety and security, tourism will not flourish. The effects of terrorism have destroyed tourist destinations brands in the tourism market.

Conclusion and recommendations

In conclusion, the current study contributes to literature by investigating the global tourism industry dynamics and their implications to emerging tourist destinations. The study examined fundamental shifts characterising the global tourism landscape since the end of WW2. These were identified as the formation of BRICS countries, ageing population, trophy hunting debate and terrorism. At the inception of tourism, boom factors influenced the growth of the industry, driven by the G7 member countries, however, as time went by, emerging markets increasingly became more significant, largely driven by the BRICS. Contemporary tourism dynamics framed as the constructs of BRICS, trophy hunting, ageing population and terrorism have been applied simultaneously to establish the extent to which they are impacting tourism growth projections from the perspectives of emerging markets. These have impacted on the trends of international tourism in a profound way. It is apparent that emerging markets are now in the front foot dictating the pace of tourism development. In light of such fundamental shifts, it is recommended that tourist destinations recalibrate their tourism product offerings so that they reflect the contemporary market dynamics. On the investment front, the emerging markets represent the future of the tourism sector, and finally in light of the devastating effects of terrorism, emerging tourist destinations should refine their terror responsive strategies.

Apart from the above, another area in need of attention is policy reform, in which immigration regulations and visa regimes should be constantly revised to strike a balance between screening travellers, balancing liberalising and softening the border control formalities to allow free flow of traffic but without compromising on the security and safety matters of tourists. Finally, marketing and promotion efforts need to be directed and focused on emerging markets and less on mature tourist regions since the former represent the future of the global tourism industry. This study therefore made a contribution in the specific areas of emerging markets, tourism senior market, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and terrorism as key aspects that can make or break the global tourism industry in the twenty-first century.

This research responded to the need for continuous research on Africa’s tourism sector and situate it in the global tourism industry (Naude and Saayman 2005 ; Christie and Crompton 2001 ; Rogerson and Visser 2011 ; Dieke 2013 ). To the best of the writer’s knowledge, this study presents new knowledge from an emerging tourist region context regarding the dynamics obtaining in the global tourism environment and their subsequent implications. The current study was done in the context of Africa an emerging tourist region, with a less influential influence in the international tourism stage. Therefore, this study provides a significant addition to literature currently dominated by insights and perspectives from advanced societies like western tourism markets.

Compliance with ethical standards

This research was carried out on respondents after full disclosure of the purpose and objectives of the study. Participants voluntarily consented to participate in the study. No minors nor vulnerable groups/individuals were involved as respondents during data collection. The study did not use unorthodox means of collecting data. There was no conflict of interest nor any envisaged commercial gain accruing to the researcher by undertaking the study. The manuscript was not submitted to any other journal neither is it under consideration in any other journal. The writer acknowledged ideas from other authoritative sources as far as possible. Information contained in the manuscript is not injurious to any organisation. In view of this, the research therefore complied with acceptable ethical standards.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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The Cultural Tourism Dynamic

Related Papers

greg richards

""The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Tourism explores and critically evaluates the debates and controversies in this field of Tourism. It brings together leading specialists from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical regions, to provide state-of-the-art theoretical reflection and empirical research on this significant stream of tourism and its future direction. The book is divided into seven inter-related sections. Part I looks at the historical, philosophical and theoretical framework for cultural tourism. This section debates tourist autonomy role play, authenticity, imaginaries, cross-cultural issues and inter-disciplinarity. Part II analyses the role that politics takes in cultural tourism. This section also looks at ways in which cultural tourism is used as a policy instrument for economic development. Part III focuses on social patterns and trends, such as the mobilities paradigm, performativity, reflexivity and traditional hospitality, as well as considering sensitive social issues such as dark tourism. Part IV analyses community and development, exploring adaptive forms of cultural tourism, as well as more sustainable models for indigenous tourism development. Part V discusses landscapes and destinations, including the transformation of space into place, issues of authenticity in landscape, the transformation of urban and rural landscapes into tourism products, and conservation versus development dilemmas. Part VI refers to regeneration and planning, especially the creative turn in cultural tourism, which can be used to avoid problems of serial reproduction, standardization and homogenization. Part VII deals with the tourist and visitor experience, emphasizing the desire of tourists to be more actively and interactively engaged in cultural tourism. This significant volume offers the reader a comprehensive synthesis of this field, conveying the latest thinking and research. The text is international in focus, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study and will be an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in cultural tourism. This is essential reading for students, researchers and academics of Tourism as well as those of related studies, in particular Cultural Studies, Leisure, Geography, Sociology, Politics and Economics. ""

Trends and Issues in Global Tourism

Albrecht Steinecke

Can-Seng Ooi

Tourism Review

Purpose To review the development of the relationship between culture and tourism over the past 75 years, and to outline some future developments over the coming 75 years. Design/methodology/approach A review of previous major work on cultural tourism. Findings Tourism and culture have been drawn inexorably closer over the years as culture has become one of the major content providers for tourism experiences, and tourism has become one of the most important income streams for cultural institutions. In the future this is likely to change, as cultural institutions find it increasingly difficult to maintain their authority as the dominant producers of local, regional and national culture, and as tourism becomes increasingly integrated into the everyday culture of the destination. Practical implications Cultural institutions will need to change their relationship with tourism as flows of tourists become more prevalent and fragmented. Social Implications The authority of high cultural institutions will be eroded as tourists increasingly seek authenticity in the culture of everyday life and the 'local'. Originality/value A first attempt to sketch the long term future of cultural tourism.

International Journal of Scientific Management and Tourism, 2015, Vol.2 pp 179-215

António S . Queirós

The main terms, such Culture, Cultural Landscape, Heritage or Cultural Tourism are not neutral scientific objects. They are academic constructions emerging in historical contexts. The concept of " motivation " is consensual for understand and explain the nature of the tourism demand, but is sufficient? We think no. We need enlarging the hermeneutic of tourism with the concept of " taste ". They are linked to a consensual paradigm. This paper wants to discuss this conceptual framework, discovering at the same time if we are in presence of some anomalies, observe multiple, unexplained or unexpected events and if a rival paradigm emerges. The second line of debate is about the connection between cultural tourism and tourism economy. Researching how is create and reproduced the capital of tourism and recognising the cultural values and products penetration in the tourism activity. Their propose: Restructuring tourism for more competitiveness and productivity (and sustainability) meaning to offer new Route and Circuits integrating cultural heritage and patrimony of nature. The third line want to discuss the idea of Cultural Tourism based on built heritage, views and lifestyle, as well as events and happenings, from a critical view. Our goal will be to build a conceptual framework to design the identity of Cultural Tourism and different types of tourism. This theoretical framework must be the same. Those principles must be commons. Our thesis is that those principles are the different organic structures and products. Different organic structures and products can to distinguish tourism cultural from tourism of nature; tourism of nature from rural tourism…and so one. A new conceptual research framework emerges and a new tourism paradigm: Environmental Tourism.

Revista Lusófona de Estudos Culturais / Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 5, n. 2

Zara Pinto-Coelho

In the context of the dynamics and changes that have crossed the so-called cultural economy (Yúdice, 2007), the official discourse of cultural tourism has been expanding its objects, being evidently marked today by an understanding of culture (Cunha, 2015) that lends it anthropological tones – “lived cultures”, “culture of everyday life” appear alongside with classic resources such as patrimony, museums and the so-called erudite arts (UNWT, 2018, p. 11) – articulated under the logic of experiential marketing. In the academy, the interest of social science researchers in cultural tourism, in its various forms, has also been growing and gaining new dynamics (Richards, 2018; Smith & Richards, 2013; Smith & Robinson, 2005), expressive of the epistemological porosity of the knowledge produced in the field, as well as of the instability, fluidity and contradic- tions that mark contemporary societies. It should be noted that in Portugal the interest that the theme arouses in the fields of Cultural Studies and of Communication has been small and is relatively recent (Bram- bília & Baptista, 2016; Cadavez, 2017; Noval & Serra, 2018; Sampaio, 2017), being clearly differentiated in this matter from the investment in done in other research fields, such as Anthropology (Pereiro, 2009; Pereiro & Fernandes, 2018; Silva, 2010), Sociology (An- drade, 2017; Fortuna, 2008; Joaquim, 2015; Marújo, 2014) or Geography (Fernandes, 2016), perhaps due to the particularities of the emergence and expansion of the Cultural Studies field at the national level (Martins, 2015; Sampaio, 2013). With the organization of this issue of the Lusophone Journal of Cultural Studies, dedicated to tourism that is defined as cultural, we intend to emphasize the relevance of researching the theme in Portuguese-speaking contexts – and in other contexts marginalized by the traditional hegemony of Anglo-Saxon literature (Dann & Parrinello, 2009).

Journal of Urban Affairs

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Environmental sustainability and tourism growth: convergence or compensation?

Open access
Published: 29 May 2024

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Viviana Torres-Díaz 1 , 2 ,
María de la Cruz del Río-Rama ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9396-9341 3 ,
José Álvarez-García 4 &
Biagio Simonetti 5 , 6 , 7

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In addition to the socio-economic advantages, tourism has been proven to be one of the most important sectors with adverse environmental effects. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between tourism and environmental sustainability by using a panel data from 32 countries in Latin America and the European Union for the period 2000–2019. Several techniques of cointegration and convergence of clusters are used to meet this objective. The empirical results show that on average, tourism growth has a negative impact on the environment in the two groups of countries, which could be attributed to the heterogeneity of the level of regional tourism development. On the other hand, the convergence of tourism growth and environmental sustainability is evident at different adjustment speeds in the different sample panels. It generates empirical evidence on whether the current expansion of the tourism sector in Latin American and European countries entails significant environmental externalities by using the ecological footprint variable as an indicator of environmental sustainability and foreign tourist arrivals as an economic indicator.

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1 Introduction

Over the past decades, countries have experienced rapid economic growth around the world (Koengkan et al. 2019 ). In line with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), more than 900 million tourists made international trips during the year 2022, twice as many as in 2021. This figure is 63% of the pre-pandemic level. In general, the number of international tourists has increased in all regions of the world. Europe, with 585 million arrivals in 2022, has reached almost 80% of pre-pandemic levels. Africa and North, Central and South America reached about 65% of pre-pandemic visitor levels (UNWTO 2023 ).

Tourism is one of the important factors that can affect the environmental and economic situation of any economy (Ozturk et al. 2023 ). Thus, tourism and economic growth have been found to go hand in hand, especially in tourist destinations (Adedoyin et al. 2021 ). In addition, tourism transfers economic income from developed to developing countries (Danish and Wang 2018 ). However, despite the benefits that tourism provides, it also affects environmental quality, as increased international tourism not only stimulates economic growth, but also increases energy consumption (Bojanic and Warnick 2020 ; Danish and Wang 2018 ) and the use of products derived from the extraction of natural resources (Robaina-Alves et al. 2016 ).

Therefore, most of the empirical and theoretical studies have argued that tourism contributes significantly to environmental degradation (Shahbaz et al. 2021 ; Danish and Wang 2018 ), so this relationship has been studied from two perspectives. The first perspective focuses on testing the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, which is an inverted U-shaped relationship between pollutants and economic growth. Based on Kuznets ( 1955 ), this theory was put forth by scholars Grossman and Krueger ( 1991 ). According to this idea, economic expansion affects environmental degradation as measured by CO 2 emissions to a point when it becomes sustainable and has a negative influence (Arbulú et al. 2015 ; Ozturk et al. 2016 ; Mikayilov et al. 2019 ; Anser et al. 2020 ; Fethi and Senyucel 2021 ; Porto and Ciaschi 2021 ; Gao et al. 2021 ). The second perspective includes research that examines the relationship between tourism growth and environmental degradation (De Vita et al. 2015 ; Zaman et al. 2016 ; Pablo-Romero et al. 2019 ; Alizadeh 2020 ; Anser et al. 2020 ).

Most of these studies (Kusumawardani and Dewi 2020 ; Rahman 2020 ; Mohammed et al. 2015 ; Ozturk and Al-Mulali 2015 ; Galeotti et al. 2006 ) have analyzed the relationship between tourism growth and environmental degradation based on the variables of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. According to Ozturk et al. ( 2023 ), the empirical findings point to a mix of favorable and unfavorable effects of visitor arrivals and CO 2 emissions in the majority of tourist locations. Environmental degradation has been shown to be a multifaceted phenomenon with a variety of indicators, which requires a comprehensive assessment of the state of the environment (Wackernagel and Rees 1998 ; Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ; Pulido-Fernández et al. 2019 ).

In this regard, some studies (Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ; Satrovic and Adedoyin 2022 ) have found that the ecological footprint is a more accurate tool for measuring and visualizing the resources that sustain the planet because it considers how dependent humans are on the environment in order support a lifestyle (Kyara et al. 2022 ; Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ; Elshimy and El-Aasar 2020 ; Figge et al. 2017 ; Ozturk et al. 2016 ; Rojas-Downing et al. 2018 ). In line with this, Gössling ( 2000 ) points out that the relationship between tourism expansion and carbon emissions, as well as evidence of the detrimental effects of fossil fuels used in the industry on the environment are some aspects of the impact of tourism growth on the ecological footprint.

As a result, the main objective of this study is to assess how tourism growth and environmental sustainability in Latin America and the European Union are related. Due to the lack of comprehensive statistical data for all the countries in the region and for all the years, the statistical data from 14 Latin American countries and 18 European countries were used between 2000 and 2019. In order to do this, the present research used convergence cluster analysis, generalized least squares (DOSL), cointegration analysis using unit root and causality tests to examine the relationship between the ecological footprint (global hectares per capita) and the number of international tourist arrivals.

In addition, this study also contributes two important elements to the literature on tourism. First, it generates empirical evidence on whether the current expansion of the tourism sector in Latin American and European countries entails significant environmental externalities by using the ecological footprint variable as an indicator of environmental sustainability and foreign tourist arrivals as an economic indicator. Second, the research ranks nations based on the likelihood that their environmental performance will be covered, considering the fact that environmental sustainability can be influenced by tourism growth. To do this, the convergence club method presented by Phillips and Su ( 2007 ) is used, which finds three convergence groups with the potential for the final two groups to merge into a single club.

Following this introduction, the study will be divided into the following sections: Sect. 2 presents the bibliographical and empirical review on the topic. In Sect. 3 , two sections are presented: in the first section, the description of the data and bibliographical sources; and, in the second section, the methodologies used are described. Section 4 shows the results obtained, while Sect. 5 provides a discussion of the findings. The last section presents the conclusions obtained.

2 Theoretical framework

There is a significant and growing interest in the connection between tourism and the environment within the analysis of the literature and empirical evidence, which suggests that this relationship can be studied from two relevant aspects. The first aspect explores the causal relationship of tourism on environmental degradation. For example, Usman et al. ( 2021 ) investigate the causal link in Asian countries and find that tourism is what is influencing the region’s environmental degradation. On the other hand, Shi et al. ( 2020 ) find a two-way causal relationship in high-income economies around the world. Other research, such as that by Lee and Brahmasrene ( 2013 ) and de Vita et al. ( 2015 ) explores this connection along with electrical energy use, demonstrating the beneficial impact of tourism on environmental degradation; while Zaman et al. ( 2016 ) determine an inverse relationship between the variables considered for an analysis in three regions of the world. According to Lv and Xu ( 2023 ), tourism always has a major detrimental impact on environmental performance, meaning that environmental deterioration will inevitably come from tourism, regardless of how developed the industry is. On the other hand, tourism will comparatively have less of an impact on environmental performance after it reaches a certain level of development.

The second aspect examines whether the EKC hypothesis caused by tourism actually exists. Kuznets ( 1955 ) investigated “the inverted U-shaped relationship between income inequality and per capita income”. Subsequently, the pioneering study by Grossman and Krueger ( 1991 ) analyzed the connection between air quality and income growth. This study provided evidence supporting the Kuznets curve. Numerous empirical studies that explored and validated the EKC hypothesis in global tourism have been conducted in recent years (Ozturk et al. 2016 ; Fethi and Senyucel 2021 ) by groups of countries (Anser et al. 2020 ; Adedoyin et al. 2021 ), in Latin America (Pablo-Romero et al. 2019 ; Ochoa-Moreno et al. 2022 ) and Europe (Arbulú et al. 2015 ; Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ). In this same line, Ekonomou and Halkos ( 2023 ) processes regression tests of contemporary panels that consider possible structural ruptures and phenomena of cross-dependence in panel data. Empirical findings confirm the EKC hypothesis, while business tourism expenses, capital investment expenses and domestic travel and tourism consumption have a negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

In order to demonstrate the link between environmental degradation and tourism growth in many industrialized and emerging economies, Table 1 aggregates empirical studies. However, the results differ in terms of policy implications, methods and geographical location. In addition, there are limited studies in both the Latin American region (Alizadeh 2020 ; Porto and Ciaschi 2021 ; Ochoa-Moreno et al. 2022 ), as well as in the application of the ecological footprint variable as a more comprehensive indicator of environmental degradation (Kyara et al. 2022 ; Saqib and Benhmad 2021a , b ; Elshimy and El-Aasar 2020 ; Figge et al. 2017 ; Ozturk et al. 2016 ; Rojas-Downing et al. 2018 ).

It is significant to highlight that the above examines the EKC hypothesis using only one indicator of environmental pollution, namely carbon dioxide emissions, and is restricted to a one-dimensional consumption-based study. In this regard, Wackernagel and Rees ( 1998 ) state that environmental degradation is a multidimensional phenomenon and is represented by several indicators, not only as a result of ongoing carbon emissions, but also of the loss of fish species, reduction of grazing land and reduction of crops (Global Footprint Network 2021 ). For example, according to Ehigiamusoe et al. ( 2023 ), the ecological footprint and carbon emissions reflect various aspects of environmental degradation highlighting the imperative for nations to take into account the interaction between globalization and tourism in their effort to ensure environmental sustainability.

In addition, because the biocapacity available is ignored, it restricts our knowledge of the dynamics of environmental stresses. According to Destek and Sarkodie ( 2019 ), the biocapacity of a nation has a substantial impact on the outcome of the EKC hypothesis. In line with this, Khan et al. ( 2019 ) found decreasing forest cover has a variety of negative effects, such as droughts, unpredictable rainfall and flash floods. In order to reduce climate change and its effects, it is crucial to analyze the ecological footprint of growing economies (Destek and Sarkodie 2019 ).

On the other hand, regarding the methodology implemented in several of the studies presented in this section, the relationship between tourism and the environment is analyzed mainly based on some common econometric techniques. However, this research seeks to broaden the analysis of the relationship from convergence, alluding to the idea that over time, the per capita production of all economies will converge (Du 2017 ), adapting and expanding it to tourism and sustainability, based on the study by Simo-Kengne ( 2022 ), who builds a tourism sustainability index and analyzes the convergence of tourism growth and environmental sustainability in 148 countries for the period from 2006 to 2016.

A number of studies (Baumol 1986 ; Bernard and Durlauf 1995 ; Barro and Sala-I-Martin 1997 ; Lee et al. 1997 ; Luginbuhl and Koopman 2004 ) have helped to establish techniques for convergence testing and to empirically investigate the convergence hypothesis in various countries and areas. Convergence analysis has recently been used to examine a variety of different topics, including the cost of living (Phillips and Sul 2007 ), carbon dioxide emissions (Panopoulou and Pantelidis 2009 ), eco-efficiency (Camarero et al. 2013 ), housing prices (Montanés and Olmos 2013), corporate taxation (Regis et al. 2015 ), etc.

Using a non-linear time-varying component model, Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) suggested a unique method (called the “log t” regression test) to evaluate the convergence hypothesis. The following are the benefits of the suggested strategy: First, it considers the diverse behavior of agents and their evolution. Second, the proposed test is robust to the stationarity property of the series, since it does not make any specific assumptions regarding trend stationarity or stochastic non-stationarity. Subsequently, Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) demonstrated certain flaws in conventional convergence tests for economic development. Due to missing variables and endogeneity problems, the Solow regression estimate enhanced under transient heterogeneity, for instance, is biased and inconsistent. Due to the fact that the presence of a unit root in the series differential does not always imply divergence, conventional cointegration tests frequently lack the sensitivity required to detect asymptotic motion.

The potential existence of convergence clubs is another recurring concern in convergence analysis. Traditional studies generally divide all participants into subgroups based on some previous knowledge (e.g., geographical region, institution), and then test the convergence hypothesis for each subgroup separately. A new algorithm was created by Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) to locate subgroups of convergence in clusters. The algorithm developed is a data-based approach that does not separate samples ex ante. Some typical models are compatible with the relative transition parameter method presented by Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) to characterize individual variations. To put people into groups with comparable transition paths, it can be used as a universal panel approach.

In this regard, the present research aims to fill the gaps identified in the aforementioned bibliography. Firstly, by expanding the analysis of the convergence of the relationship between tourism growth and environmental sustainability. Secondly, a proxy for environmental degradation for the Latin American and European regions using new indicators and with more comprehensive dimensions.

3 Methodology

The data used in this study were taken from the World Bank (2022) and Global Footprint Network ( 2021 ). The variables extracted are the ecological footprint (ECO), which serves as the dependent variable in this study, and the number of international arrivals (TUR), which serves as the independent variable. This study covers 32 countries (Latin America, 14 and the European Union, 18) during the period 2000–2019. With 640 observations over the 20-year period and 32 countries, the variables provide a fully balanced panel over the 20-year period (t = 1, 2, …, 20), and 32 countries (i = 1, 2, …, 32).

Within countries, measured in global hectares per person, the ecological footprint is more stable than between them. Within countries, the standard deviation (SD) is 0.33, and between countries, it is 1.47. Similarly, the within-country variation in tourist revenues (log) (TUR) is lower than between countries. In comparison to the standard deviation across countries, which is 0.58, the standard deviation within countries is 0.32 (Table 2 ).

The annual evolution on average of the ecological footprint and the arrival of international tourists for Latin American countries can be observed in Fig. 1 . The trend of the dependent variable is constant, i.e., the ecological footprint is constant over the length of the study period in the sample of Latin American countries; while the independent variable is positive, i.e., it shows a constant increase in the study period (Table 3 ).

Average ecological footprint and tourist arrivals in 14 Latin American countries

Figure 2 shows the average annual changes in the ecological footprint and the number of foreign visitors for the European Union member states. As can be seen, the independent variable has a positive trend throughout the study period and the dependent variable has a negative trend, which means that the ecological footprint in the sample of European countries has maintained an average decrease.

Average ecological footprint and tourist arrivals in 18 European Union countries

Over time you can see how Latin American countries converge in terms of sustainability and tourism growth; Meanwhile, the countries of the European Union diverge in terms of tourism and environmental sustainability, especially in the last years of the study; However, this differs depending on the macroeconomic conditions of each country; this is expanded upon in the results and discussion section once the cluster convergence method has been applied.

3.2 Methodology

The empirical research follows a four-step process in line with the research objective of examining the convergence and interaction between the ecological footprint and international tourism growth in a panel of 32 countries from 2000 to 2019. The stationarity of the variables under study is first verified as a prerequisite in the first phase. The cointegration test is used in the second phase to assess whether there is stationarity between the variables under study in the long run. The third phase consists of estimating the fictitious cointegration connection in order to describe its dynamics, including how quickly it adjusts to long-term equilibrium and the short- and long-term effects. The causality analysis that comes at the end of this process, which considers the direction of the effects and any potential externalities to the research variables, is important for the creation of policy implications. The connection between tourism and environmental impact can be expressed as follows:

If the logarithm of tourism is considered in Eq. 1 , it is formulated as follows:

The ecological footprint of country $i$ as a whole during period $t$ is represented by log ${(ECO)}_{i,t}$ , the logarithm of tourism during period $t$ is represented by $\log (TUR)_{i,t}$ , and the error term is represented by $\varepsilon_{i,t}$ . The results at this stage are interesting because they show the direction and strength of the effect of the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

The unit root test is used to check if the series are stationary—i.e., if there is no trend effect—prior to the cointegration analysis. Levin, Lin, and Chu-LLC and Im, Pesaran, and Shin-IPS, both suggested by Levin et al. ( 2002 ) and Im et al. ( 2003 ), were the tests used. The Fisher-type test based on the ADF test (Dickey and Fuller 1981 ) and the Fisher-type test based on the PP test were also used in response to Maddala and Wu ( 1999 ), who suggested using a simpler non-parametric unit root test. This equation was used to estimate these tests:

where ∆ is the first difference operator, ${X}_{i,t}$ is the series for a member of panel (country) i during the period (i = 1, 2, … N); (t = 1, 2, … T), ${p}_{i}$ indicates the number of lags in the ADF regression, and the error term ${\varepsilon }_{i,t}$ is assumed to be independently distributed random variables and normal for all i and t mean zero and finite heterogeneous variance.

The following stage tested for long-term equilibrium between the variables under study using cointegration techniques (Pedroni 1999 , 2004 ). The panel series are compared to see if there is a long-term link by using the Pedroni ( 1999 , 2004 ) cointegration test. The panel v statistic, panel rho statistic, panel PP statistic, panel ADF statistic, and the panel statistic—group rho, group PP statistic, and group ADF statistic are all calculated using the regression of Eq. ( 3 ) in the Pedroni cointegration test (Pedroni 1999 , 2004 ):

In addition, a short-term equilibrium based on error correction models (ECVM) is present (Westerlund 2007 ). The null hypothesis of no cointegration versus cointegration between the variables used is considered at the regional level. As opposed to residual dynamics, this demonstrates structural dynamics, hence there are no restrictions on any common element. On the other hand, the error correction model developed by Westerlund in 2007 is denoted by the following notation and it is assumed that all variables are integrated in order 1 or I (1):

where d t = (1 − t) contains the deterministic components and θ t = (1 − t) is the vector of unknown coefficients to be estimated.

As indicated by Dumitrescu and Hurlin ( 2012 ), the Granger non-causality approach was used after calculating the equilibrium connection to take into consideration panel data heterogeneity problems. In the situation of imbalanced and heterogeneous data, the Dumitrescu-Hurlin (DH) test is a modified version of the Granger causality test that is more lenient for T < N and T > N. Equation ( 6 ) is used in the DH test:

where ${\varphi }_{i}$ is the intercept of the slope, ${\gamma }_{i}$ and ${\theta }_{i}$ are the slope coefficients, ε is the error term, and k is the number of lag lengths.

In order to investigate the presence of convergence clubs according to the Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) clustering procedure, the following steps are implemented:

(Cross section last observation ordering): Sort units in descending order according to the last panel observation of the period;

(Core group formation): Run the log-t regression for the first k units (2 < k < N) maximizing k under the condition that t-value is >−1.65. In other words, chose the core group size ${k}^{*}$ as follows:

If the condition tk > −1.65 does not hold for k = 2 (the first two units), drop the first unit and repeat the same procedure. If tk > −1.65 does not hold for any units chosen, the whole panel diverges.

The fixed-effects and random-effects models were compared using the Hausman test ( 1978 ). As a result, for each panel, the model that best fitted the test data was chosen. The modified Wald test and the Wooldridge ( 1991 ) test were also used to test for heteroscedasticity and to identify autocorrelation in the panel, highlighting the need to estimate the parameters of Eq. ( 2 ) using generalized least squares (GLS) for panel data (Wooldridge 2004 ). The results are shown for the two groups of countries (Table 4 ).

Next, the non-stationarity of the series is confirmed using unit root tests for panel data. Three tests, those of Levin et al. ( 2002 ) and Im et al. ( 2003 ), known respectively as LLC and IPS tests in the empirical literature on panel data, were applied to confirm the reliability of the findings. Comparisons were made between the results of these tests and those produced by Maddala and Wu ( 1999 ). Both with and without the effects of time were considered in the testing. According to the findings in Table 5 , the series show an order of integration (1). The existence of long-term and short-term cointegration vectors between the variables is confirmed in the following step of this research.

Pedroni ( 1999 , 2004 ) developed the cointegration test in heterogeneous panels, which allows to merge cross-sectional dependence with various individual effects, to determine the presence of a long-term equilibrium. This analytical framework, which incorporates seven repressors based on seven residual-based statistics, enables cointegration tests to be run in both heterogeneous and homogeneous panels.

The results of the seven statistics used by Pedroni ( 1999 , 2004 ) are shown in Table 6 . With varying degrees of significance, the majority of the statistics for each set of countries reject the null hypothesis of no cointegration. As a result, these findings suggest that throughout the years 2000–2019 in the groupings of countries, tourism and the ecological footprint have moved together and simultaneously.

In addition, the short-run equilibrium was calculated using an error correction model (ECVM) for panel data created by Westerlund ( 2007 ). If there is a short-run equilibrium, this implies that changes in tourism revenues will quickly result in changes in the ecological footprint. According to the data compiled in Table 7 , each group of countries is in short-term equilibrium.

Granger-type causality of the variables was established using the formalization created by (Dumitrescu and Hurlin 2012 ). In both country groupings, it was found that there are causal connections that stem from TUR → ECO (gha). In other words, changes in the number of visitors will have an impact on the ecological footprint on average in both European and Latin American countries. When considering the direction of the effects and their potential externalities to the research variables, these causal analyses are crucial for the creation of policy implications (see Table 8 ).

To do this, the Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) proposed convergence club technique is used, which finds three convergence clusters with the possibility of the two final clusters combining to form a single club. The convergence club hypothesis, which holds that countries moving from a point of environmental imbalance to their club-specific steady state trajectory belong to the same cluster, is where the three mega clubs in Table 9 come from.

Table 9 shows that there are three clubs and three divergent units in club 4 for Latin America. It lists the number of units (countries) covered for each club, as well as the beta coefficient of the log-t test and the value of the t-statistic. Since the t-value for clubs 1 and 2 is less than −1.65, the null hypothesis of convergence is rejected at the 5% level; however, the hypothesis is not rejected for club 3.

On the other hand, two clubs representing 9 and 4 countries, respectively, are shown for the 18 countries that make up the European Union, along with 5 divergent units in club 3. Given that the t-value in the two established clubs is less than −1.65 in this case, the null hypothesis of convergence is rejected at the 5% level.

The results in Fig. 3 a, b demonstrate graphically that the economies of Europe and Latin America are not close to reaching their stationary states. In addition, the last graph of each section (a) and b)) shows the comparison between the average transitory behavior of each club, where it can be more clearly identified that the path of the countries in both regions has a different pattern.

Transition paths within each convergence club in the 14 Latin American countries and transition paths within each convergence club in the 18 European Union countries

5 Discussion

In the previous section, the results of the estimated GLS are presented, which allowed to establish the relationship of the ecological footprint based on the logarithm of international tourist arrivals, showing a negative effect on the panel of Latin America and Europe. In other words, as tourism increases, it has a positive and significant effect on the deterioration of the ecological footprint in both regions. These results are similar to those found by authors such as Porto and Ciaschi ( 2021 ) and Arbulú et al. ( 2015 ), who by using generalized least squares verified that tourism activity causes an increase in environmental degradation, measured through carbon emissions for 18 Latin American and 32 European countries. This suggests that the non-linear impact of tourism on the environmental degradation of countries is not sustainable as tourism increases, so efforts to mitigate environmental degradation from tourism must be implemented (Simo-Kengne 2022 ).

Both the existence of short-term (Westerlund 2007 ) and long-term equilibrium (Pedroni 1999 , 2004 ) have been tested using the approach. Similar methodological techniques are used by studies such as Ochoa-Moreno et al. ( 2022 ), Ghosh et al. ( 2022 ), and Saqib and Benhmad ( 2020 ) to establish equilibrium correlations in various study samples. The findings show that during the period 2000–2019, tourism growth and the ecological footprint in global hectares per capita have a combined and synchronous movement in both sets of countries. This is in line with Saqib and Benhmad’s ( 2020 ) hypothesis that the dynamics in developing countries affects how these variables are balanced. This is because the tourism industry generates significant economic advantages, while also contributing to an increase in environmental degradation. Due to the fact that these countries have not yet transitioned from traditional energy sources to more cutting-edge and environmentally friendly technology in tourism, the host country will suffer.

On the one hand, Granger’s causality (Dumitrescu and Hurlin 2012 ) showed that the ecological footprint and growth of tourism in both categories of countries had mutual causal links. In other words, the extraction and exploitation of natural resources is accelerated by the economic growth of industrialized economies, which reduces the biocapacity of the environment and increases the ecological footprint (Panayotou 1993 ). This finding is comparable to those of Destek and Asumadu ( 2018 ) and Saqib and Benhmad ( 2020 ), which found a two-way causal link. On the other hand, Ghosh et al. ( 2022 ) find a two-way causal relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, tourism and ecological footprint in the G-7 countries. Ozturk et al. ( 2023 ) who use a unique technique through quantum-in-quantum regression and Granger causality and suggest a combination of positive and negative effects of tourist arrivals and CO 2 emissions at most tourist destinations. Moreover, Ekonomou and Halkos ( 2023 ) by applying Granger’s non-causality tests to a eurozone data panel suggest that all Granger variables cause greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, the convergence analysis in both regions indicates that the sample of countries selected for this study do not have convergence in environmental terms, i.e., they do not converge towards the stationary point of each convergence club created from the Phillips cluster procedure (Philips and Sul 2007 , 2009 ). These findings contrast with those made by Simo-Kengne ( 2022 ) for a sample of 148 countries, who found that the convergence of tourism growth and environmental well-being tends to adjust at varying rates depending on the sample panels. Similarly, research by Phillips and Sul ( 2007 ) found that the relative cost of living in the 19 major American metropolises does not appear to converge over time, in addition to providing a new mechanism to model and analyze the behavior of the economic transition in the presence of common growth characteristics.

6 Conclusions and political implications

The environment is a resource and an opportunity, as well as a constraint for tourism. As a result, while engaging in tourism activities might help the environment to remain sustainable, it can also worsen its condition. The overall impact depends on the nature of tourism, as well as on contextual factors like the development of technology, the level of environmental awareness, and society’s lifestyle (Pigram 1980). Thus, the aim of the study is to investigate the connection between tourism growth and the ecological footprint in 14 Latin American and 18 European countries. To find the convergence of tourism growth and environmental sustainability, the annual period between 2000 and 2019 is examined using panel cointegration techniques and the clustering procedure.

The study findings support the notion that tourism development and environmental sustainability are mutually exclusive, since increasing biocapacity has a detrimental impact on environmental sustainability. Similarly, Danish et al. ( 2019 ), Adedoyin et al. ( 2021 ), and Chu et al. ( 2017 ), all reach the conclusion that decreasing biocapacity in Beijing, Tianjin, and Heibin is what leads to ecological improvement. These studies support the finding of Danish et al. In addition, increased tourism-related activities, globalization and economic production can all have a negative impact on the environment, as demonstrated by the research of Nathaniel ( 2021 c), who found that as tourism grows, so does energy consumption, which in turn causes the release of toxic chemicals that degrade the quality of the environment.

The current study adds important elements to the analysis of the literature on the growth of tourism and the impact on the environment, making important methodological contributions by using the ecological footprint variable as an indicator of sustainability, as well as the convergence club method presented by Phillips and Su ( 2007 ) to determine the convergence of tourist and environmental sustainability. However, some theoretical limitations have been presented, such as the lack of information for all countries in the Latin American region and the European Union; and empirical, there are limited studies examining the relationship or impact of tourism growth and ecological footprint as an indicator of environmental sustainability.

From the political point of view, it is imperative that nations take decisions and do things to achieve environmental sustainability. There are two ways to fulfill this commitment, which will ensure a smaller ecological footprint and a cleaner environment. First, it is suggested that governments and organizations adopt green tourism, which can reduce soil erosion and air pollution caused by various forms of tourism-related transportation. Second, in order to fulfill environmental preservation and economic development objectives, sustainable economic production is preferable in order to limit environmentally damaging emissions (Alola et al. 2019a , 2019b ; Nathaniel et al. 2021 ). These findings suggest that policymakers should implement financial changes aimed at sustainable development, as well as assist tourism initiatives that use renewable energy sources. Furthermore, the findings suggest that these countries economic growth goals should be combined with carbon dioxide emission legislation (Koengkan et al. 2019 ).

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

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Viviana Torres-Díaz

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Nelson Mandela’s personal items under the hammer in New York? Why it outraged some, and what’s at stake

Lecturer Department of African Studies and Linguistics, University of Cape Town

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An identity document, a pair of reading glasses, a hearing aid and a pair of worn shoes. These are just some of Nelson Mandela’s personal items that were due to go on auction on 22 February 2024. A month before the auction was due , the New York-based Guernsey’s auction house put a notice on its website that it was suspending the sales. No explanation was given.

The initial news of the auction caused outrage. South African government officials , commentators on South African social media, and even members of the family of South Africa’s late former president expressed shocked disbelief.

In December 2021 the auction published an auction catalogue – subsequently removed on 30 January 2024 – promoting many personal items, as well as the key to Mandela’s cell on Robben Island, where he was imprisoned for 18 of his 27 years of incarceration for his opposition to apartheid. Makaziwe Mandela, Mandela’s daughter, who consigned the items for auction, stated that proceeds from the sale would go towards the building of a memorial garden in Qunu, the rural settlement where he was born.

On 23 December 2021, the UK Daily Mail published a sensational news item reporting that the key was expected to fetch £1 million (US1.27 million).

The South African Heritage Resources Agency , which coordinates the identification and management of national heritage, learned of the auction through the report. It contacted the auction house, ordering it to stop the auction immediately . It claimed that the items were heritage objects and that they had been exported from South Africa without the relevant permits.

Makaziwe Mandela responded , arguing that the items were her private possessions.

The South African Heritage Resources Agency, the Robben Island Museum and the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture took the case to the Pretoria High Court. The court found that the items weren’t heritage objects because, among other things, the language that describes a “heritage object” that the state was arguing for was too broad.

Heritage is always contested. The state, the nation, private individuals and the market often have competing stakes in making claims to – and about – the cultural value that heritage holds. At times courts are enlisted to mediate such disputes.

Many South Africans have a strong personal relationship with Mandela. The outrage directed against the proposed auction can be traced to the personal and intimate nature of the items. And the fact that their sale feels like transgressing a moral boundary of familial respect.

In addition, given his political stature at home and globally, there are many who feel the auction crossed a cultural boundary. The items being put on the block are special for the nation and are tied to the post-apartheid story of the struggle for freedom and democracy.

This value is intuitively understood as heritage.

As a scholar of the cultural construction of heritage and contested public culture, I find this dispute a fascinating illustration of the shifting dynamics of heritage adjudication after 30 years of democracy. Where once heritage was about reconciliation and nation building, it is ever more about struggles over ownership, private property, cultural value and economic gain.

The Pretoria High Court handed down its judgment on the basis of the facts brought before it.

In its arguments before the court the South African Heritage Resources Agency quoted sections of, among others, the National Heritage Resources Act , which protects heritage objects, or things deemed as such on the basis of their

association with political processes, events and figures and leaders in South Africa.

But in its judgment, the court found that definition the state wanted for heritage status was

so overbroad that just about anything that President Mandela touched or is associated with, or related to him, can be considered a heritage object.

It asked how these items could be termed heritage items while the “tens of hundreds of Springbok Rugby jerseys or ruling party attire autographed by Nelson Mandela on the campaign trail” were not.

The justices also inferred that items should have extraordinary qualities of great national significance for them to be registered as heritage objects. The Mandela items, many of which were as ordinary as reading glasses and his hearing aids, did not seem to meet that criterion.

Yet, there is a precedent for such use, such as Mandela’s red Mercedes displayed at the Apartheid Museum. Objects telling meaningful stories have also been curated and displayed at the museum marking the place at which Nelson Mandela was once captured .

Nevertheless, it was for these reasons that the items were not declared heritage objects.

Contested terrain

Concern about the heritage value of the items is well founded. By definition it raises questions about the South African Heritage Resources Agency and its role as a custodian of national heritage.

Possession comes with all kinds of responsibilities of care and public education. In making its case, the agency did not present a custodial plan including an assessment of the items, the museums to which they would go once they were repatriated and the exhibitions and educational projects they would potentially be used for.

There was also no mention of how costs for this curatorial custodianship would be carried.

Without any of this the question arises: if we believe that these objects do belong to the nation under the South African Heritage Resources Agency’s care, what benchmarks can be used to assess its ability to effectively manage and publicise Nelson Mandela’s legacy?

On the other hand, it’s not entirely clear that these items should be available for private sale either, even if it is to contribute to the social good of memorialisation. Could they not have been better used as displays in the memorial garden in Qunu, and then create a sustainable heritage tourism attraction, for example?

After Mandela’s death in 2013, the organisations responsible for managing his legacy continued to endorse commercial ventures of a charitable kind or with some form of social good.

The case shows how the dynamics of struggle and dispute have shifted in ways that lean more towards narratives that privilege the idea of heritage as private property linked to public good. No more is the struggle so much about transformation of the heritage landscape.

This trend can be traced back to Nelson Mandela’s own participation in the marketing of his legacy for charitable ventures . During his life he used his legacy for charitable causes, endorsing products, producing artworks and donating personal items for a variety of charitable ventures.

This change is also connected to the attrition of the state’s authority to articulate persuasive claims over things that belong to the nation. And its unclear role in promoting them for deepening the national story. For if these objects were of great national significance then surely the South African Heritage Resources Agency would have registered and classified them a long time ago. And they would be put to good use in commemorative projects befitting Nelson Mandela’s legacy in Qunu and beyond.

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