The uneven geography of business tourism in South Africa

Abstract

Business tourism is a vital element of the global tourism economy. Its importance has not, however, been matched by research attention by tourism scholars, including geographers. Against a review of international debates in business tourism scholarship, this paper analyses the changing geography of business tourism in South Africa, one of Africa's most significant destinations for international and domestic business travel. The changing geographical landscape of business tourism is unpacked through a demand-side analysis which is an important gap in existing tourism geographical work, mainly dominated by supply-side studies about the provision of convention centres or conference venues. The results reinforce the special significance of business tourism for tourism development in certain of the country's major urban centres.

Keywords::

• tourism geography
• business tourism
• urban tourism
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

Wendy Job is acknowledged for preparing the accompanying maps. Comments from two anonymous reviewers assisted in revision of the paper. Finally, recognition is given to the inputs made by Mabel Black to whom this paper is dedicated in memory.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. The Global Insight database uses the ReX Tourism model which builds from data sets focusing both on the supply of services to tourists and others which focus on demand. In terms of business tourism Global Insight explain the methodology as follows (Global Insight, 2012). The numbers of trips are distributed in part according to the share of establishments providing business services per region. This is combined with a rating of economic activity in the region to distribute trips across regions. This approach was seen to predict business tourism successfully on the provincial levels where demand-side comparative data were available. Adjustments were made on an assumption that domestic business is more sensitive to level of regional economic activity than foreign business travel, which was more sensitive to type of accommodation. The distinction is made between domestic business tourists who are able to determine business trends compared to accommodation providers who only begin providing services (to foreigners as well as domestic business travellers) only after an economic activity has seen as a determined trend.

Additional information

Funding

The University of Johannesburg provided funding support.