A Decade of Progress in African Urban Tourism Scholarship

This article introduces a theme issue of Urban Forum on the topic of urban tourism in Africa. A context is provided for the issue by an overview of key themes which have been represented in a decade of African urban tourism research. Although most extant research is on urban South Africa, there is an emerging literature on other African cities. The major themes of research have surrounded tourism and urban economic restructuring with the establishment of new products for leisure tourism; slum tourism and pro-poor tourism; the role of the accommodation sector; African cities as non-leisure destinations; and, informal sector tourism. It is argued that within the evolving international scholarship on urban tourism, aspects of African urban tourism research exhibit distinctive features and offer challenges to Northern conceptions of urban tourism and urban tourists.