Changing hotel location patterns in Ekurhuleni, South Africa's industrial workshop

The accommodation sector is of central importance to research on urban tourism. A number of studies seek to understand the location of hotels in urban areas. This article contributes to the limited scholarship on hotel location in African cities. Under investigation is hotel development in Ekurhuleni, one of South Africa's newest metropolitan areas with a strong tradition of mining and industrial activities. This is a non-traditional tourism destination where until recently leisure tourism was not a component of the local economy. In terms of tourism development Ekurhuleni has expanded its share of business tourism as a result of its geographical location in South Africa's economic heartland. Importantly, business tourism has been driven by the location in Ekurhuleni of OR Tambo Airport, South Africa's major international gateway airport. Between 1990 and 2010 this investigation shows that the local hotel economy of Ekurhuleni has been transformed. One aspect of restructuring has been the collapse of the low quality liquor dominated hotel which was numerically the major accommodation type of the pre-1990 period. The booming business tourism economy caused new investments and hotel property developments in medium-size and high quality four and five star hotel establishments. Growth has clustered geographically in and around the international airport which is the key contemporary locational influence for hotel location in this investigation.