Giliberto, F. orcid.org/0000-0003-0072-1898 and Labadi, S. (2023) Re-Imagining Heritage Tourism in Post-COVID Sub-Saharan Africa: Local Stakeholders’ Perspectives and Future Directions. Sustainability, 15 (5). 4339. ISSN 2071-1050
Abstract
Tourism strategies implemented all over the world have often been demonstrably far from sustainable. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and its dramatic effects on the tourism sector worldwide present a unique transformative opportunity to reframe tourism in more sustainable ways. This article uses qualitative research methods and ethnography to advance knowledge on the impacts, both positive and negative, of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and heritage sites, as perceived by local stakeholders living and/or working at six popular heritage destinations in Sub-Saharan Africa, located in Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa. The article discusses ways to rethink heritage-based tourism strategies more sustainably, according to the viewpoint of the research participants, and identifies new emerging tourism opportunities triggered by the pandemic, cutting across different local contexts to highlight more widely generalisable research findings. Identified strategies include diversifying tourism products at heritage sites; improving tourism marketing, visitors’ experience, and infrastructures; fostering more inclusive, co-operative, and integrated tourism and heritage management systems; increasing awareness of local resources while promoting ecotourism and responsible travel; and supporting economic diversification and local entrepreneurship.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | sustainable development; heritage tourism; heritage management; sub-Saharan Africa; COVID-19; community tourism |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Management Division (LUBS) (Leeds) > Management Division Enterprise & Entrepreneurship (LUBS) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 15 Jan 2024 13:14 |
Last Modified: | 15 Jan 2024 13:14 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su15054339 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/su15054339 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:207159 |