Special issue: Tourism and hospitality development in African economies: Perspectives and challenges

The tourism and hospitality sector is a growing contributor to many national economies. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates that the contribution of travel and tourism to gross domestic product is expected to rise from US$5751 billion in 2010 to US$11 151 billion by 2020. In view of its economic implications, many countries desire an expansion in tourism and it is a sector that few governments can afford to neglect (Nunkoo & Ramkissoon, 2010). This is especially true for developing African nations having limited economic opportunities in other sectors that often see tourism as an engine for economic and social development. However, tourism potential in African economies is constrained by several factors such as lack of capital, political instability, distance from main tourism markets, inadequate tourism infrastructure, poor governance, marketing and management of the industry, and lack of tourism policy and planning. Despite the growing interests in African tourism and the challenges, tourism and hospitality research in the region lags largely behind those on industrialised and developed economies. Researchers have already expressed concerns over such concentration of scholarship and research in developed economies. For example, Nunkoo et al. (2013:269) noted that tourism and hospitality research ‘is highly concentrated in the developed world, while the voices of developing nations are marginalised. This pattern provides some indication of underlying power dimensions in the production of hospitality knowledge'. Tribe et al. (2012) used the term ‘Eurocentric Knowledges' to describe such geographical imbalances in knowledge production.

Prompted by the above, the purpose of this special issue of Development Southern Africa is to analyse the perspectives and challenges of tourism and hospitality development in African economies with the objectives of: contributing to the comparatively limited tourism and hospitality research on African; improving policy-making in tourism and hospitality in African economies; and increasing the visibility of African scholars researching tourism and hospitality. The call for papers of the special issue specifically stated that ‘young and emerging African researchers and scholars are particularly encouraged to submit papers for publication consideration'. This objective was not only achieved, but it was good to see research collaborations between African researchers and those based in developed economies such as North America (e.g. the article co-authored by John Mgonja, Agnes Sirima, Kenneth Backman & Sheila Backman) and the Netherlands (e.g. the article co-authored by Rita Ntinga, Rene van der Duim, Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers & Machiel Lamers). Such collaborations not only facilitate knowledge transfer and learning, but are also essential for the success and knowledge advancement in a field (Racherla & Hu, 2010). The papers published in the special issue cover a range of ‘hot topics' in tourism and hospitality research, such as climate change, sustainable tourism, regional development, economics of tourism, and tourist consumption.

As Guest Editor, my humble opinion is therefore that the raison-d’être of the special issue has been achieved. I owe its success to a number of individuals who I would like to gracefully acknowledge. First and foremost, my sincere thanks go to Dr Marie Kirsten, Editor-in-Chief of Development Southern Africa, for believing in my idea of having a special issue of her journal when I first contacted her. I am thankful to the authors for submitting high-quality research papers that they could have no doubt sent to other journals for publication consideration. To the reviewers, I am grateful for their valuable comments and suggestions, which no doubt contributed to making the papers in the special issue theoretically sound and methodologically rigorous. I cannot forget the editorial support I received from Lyn Sumners, who spent a great amount of time editing papers and communicating with authors and reviewers. I hope you enjoy reading the articles in this special issue!