Secondary cities and tourism: The South African record

Urban tourism has been explored extensively in the past 15 years in South Africa. Within the literature on urban tourism there is a large city bias with most research concentrated on the country’s major metropolitan destinations. Minimal attention has been directed to tourism which occurs in the country’s second order or secondary cities. In recent years the importance of secondary cities for national economic development and urban planning has been rediscovered and re-energised. In South Africa a new ‘conversation’ about the potential role of the country’s secondary cities has begun. This article offers an exploratory analysis of the tourism economies of South Africa’s secondary cities. It reveals the uneven and differentiated role of tourism across the country’s secondary cities.