Looking to the Past: The Geography of Tourism in South Africa During the Pre-COVID-19 Era

During 2020 the march of the COVID-19 pandemic created devastation for the tourism industry of South Africa. This chapter uses a spatial perspective to provide an understanding of the tourism space economy of South Africa in the pre-COVID-19 period. Arguing that the pandemic represents a historical turning point for tourism in South Africa the objective is to ‘look to the past’ and reconstruct the geography of tourism for 2018 almost the close of the pre-COVID 19 era. Future research on urban tourism in South Africa in the post-COVID period can utilise this historical benchmark of information in order to evaluate the COVID-19 impacts upon the tourism space economy of South Africa as well as for the resilience of different destinations. Key themes under scrutiny are the dominance of the tourism space economy by city destinations as a whole and metropolitan areas in particular and the mapping of differential urban tourisms in terms of cities and small towns. Location quotient analysis is undertaken to identify the most vulnerable localities to the negative consequences for urban tourism of COVID-19.