Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park

As a new phenomenon, geotourism research is on the rise. Although South Africa has some interesting geoheritage sites, not much has been done to investigate the potential contribution of geotourism to the tourism sector, the protection of natural resources and employment generation, let alone the ch...

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Autores principales:	Khodani Matshusa, Llewellyn Leonard, Peta Thomas
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	geotourism challenges Kruger National Park South Africa Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/865f25aba37d444c9292fdba734a98b9
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:865f25aba37d444c9292fdba734a98b92021-11-25T18:55:53ZChallenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park10.3390/resources101101082079-9276https://doaj.org/article/865f25aba37d444c9292fdba734a98b92021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/11/108https://doaj.org/toc/2079-9276As a new phenomenon, geotourism research is on the rise. Although South Africa has some interesting geoheritage sites, not much has been done to investigate the potential contribution of geotourism to the tourism sector, the protection of natural resources and employment generation, let alone the challenges that may be experienced in promoting geotourism. Therefore, this paper aims to describe the concept of geotourism and to identify the challenges of geotourism. It achieves this by looking at the case of the Kruger National Park, one of the largest game reserves in Africa, containing an abundance of geotourism sites. This research adopted a qualitative approach, with data collection involving semi-structured interviews with sixteen key informants to understand the challenges of geotourism. Manual content analysis was employed for analysing the data. A significant finding was that there were seven potential challenges in promoting and developing geotourism in the Kruger National Park: (1) a lack of packaging and marketing; (2) a lack of infrastructure; (3) security and access to geoheritage sites by tourists; (4) access to finance and markets; (5) destruction of geoheritage sites; (6) social challenges and (7) regulatory challenges. The results indicated that these challenges of geotourism can lead to negative perceptions about geotourism and can negatively impact the potential for geotourism development towards effective local social sustainability, especially for communities abutting the KNP. The major contribution of this study is its expansion of the geotourism academic literature through newly generated data on the challenges of geotourism in South Africa. Furthermore, this study theoretically contributes to the body of knowledge on geotourism and its challenges in Africa, particularly regarding the Kruger National Park.Khodani MatshusaLlewellyn LeonardPeta ThomasMDPI AGarticlegeotourismchallengesKruger National ParkSouth AfricaScienceQENResources, Vol 10, Iss 108, p 108 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	geotourism challenges Kruger National Park South Africa Science Q
spellingShingle	geotourism challenges Kruger National Park South Africa Science Q Khodani Matshusa Llewellyn Leonard Peta Thomas Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park
description	As a new phenomenon, geotourism research is on the rise. Although South Africa has some interesting geoheritage sites, not much has been done to investigate the potential contribution of geotourism to the tourism sector, the protection of natural resources and employment generation, let alone the challenges that may be experienced in promoting geotourism. Therefore, this paper aims to describe the concept of geotourism and to identify the challenges of geotourism. It achieves this by looking at the case of the Kruger National Park, one of the largest game reserves in Africa, containing an abundance of geotourism sites. This research adopted a qualitative approach, with data collection involving semi-structured interviews with sixteen key informants to understand the challenges of geotourism. Manual content analysis was employed for analysing the data. A significant finding was that there were seven potential challenges in promoting and developing geotourism in the Kruger National Park: (1) a lack of packaging and marketing; (2) a lack of infrastructure; (3) security and access to geoheritage sites by tourists; (4) access to finance and markets; (5) destruction of geoheritage sites; (6) social challenges and (7) regulatory challenges. The results indicated that these challenges of geotourism can lead to negative perceptions about geotourism and can negatively impact the potential for geotourism development towards effective local social sustainability, especially for communities abutting the KNP. The major contribution of this study is its expansion of the geotourism academic literature through newly generated data on the challenges of geotourism in South Africa. Furthermore, this study theoretically contributes to the body of knowledge on geotourism and its challenges in Africa, particularly regarding the Kruger National Park.
format	article
author	Khodani Matshusa Llewellyn Leonard Peta Thomas
author_facet	Khodani Matshusa Llewellyn Leonard Peta Thomas
author_sort	Khodani Matshusa
title	Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park
title_short	Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park
title_full	Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park
title_fullStr	Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park
title_full_unstemmed	Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park
title_sort	challenges of geotourism in south africa: a case study of the kruger national park
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/865f25aba37d444c9292fdba734a98b9
work_keys_str_mv	AT khodanimatshusa challengesofgeotourisminsouthafricaacasestudyofthekrugernationalpark AT llewellynleonard challengesofgeotourisminsouthafricaacasestudyofthekrugernationalpark AT petathomas challengesofgeotourisminsouthafricaacasestudyofthekrugernationalpark
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Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park

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