Reconfiguring South Africa’s hotel industry 1990–2010: Structure, segmentation, and spatial transformation

One of the central challenges of a maturing tourism destination is to ensure continuous innovation and improvement of tourism products to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive global tourism economy The purpose of this study is to analyse a critical aspect of the improvement of tourism product competitiveness in South Africa, the changing tourism accommodation sector and specifically of the hotel industry. During the study period 1990–2010 it is shown that the hotel industry was restructured in terms of enhanced quality standards, the introduction of new hotel products and driven by the imperatives of market segmentation. Geographically, the hotel sector became more concentrated upon four key urban tourism nodes and in certain cities the over-production of hotel accommodation is an emerging problem.

► Analysis of South African Tourism Hotel Product. ► Study Period of 1990 to 2010 shows reconstructed hotel industry and enhanced quality standards. ► Based upon extensive qualitative hotel interviews in South Africa. ► 2 Data bases compiled for each time period.