THE STATE OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN TRANSFRONTIER CONSERVATION AREAS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

This study adopts a cross-border approach to examining the state of tourism development within the context of Transfrontier conservation areas, based on three case study sites (Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). In-depth interviews conducted with 58 wildlife tourism stakeholders, including tourism businesses, conservation NGOs, community representatives, and governing authorities, demonstrate that while natural resources constitute the basis of the tourism economies, the level of development and ownership of tourism offerings differs significantly among the three destinations. Additionally, while international and regional tourists have been the dominant market for these destinations, there is a strong emergence of domestic tourists stemming from the post-pandemic era. The unbalanced scale of tourism development in the three destinations demonstrates that closer attention must be paid to tourism policies and practices that support the inclusion of local entrepreneurs in the tourism sector to generate a greater localised socioeconomic impact and align stakeholder interests.