Women Informal Business Tourists in Urban Southern Africa: Circuits, Drivers and Challenges

Across sub-Saharan Africa, a substantial economy benefits from informal business tourism. In Southern Africa, the central element in informal business tourism is women's activities as informal cross-border shoppers and traders. The article investigates this neglected aspect of informal business tourism and unpacks the organisation of the key circuits of informal business tourism in urban Southern Africa. Major findings disclose that Johannesburg is established as the pivot of these regional shopping circuits. In the post-apartheid period, an infrastructure emerged in the inner city of Johannesburg to facilitate the operations of informal business tourists. The entrepôt operates as a transit tourism space, a conduit for channelling mainly Chinese products to destinations elsewhere in Africa. It is a space that connects the formal to the informal and the local to the global. Arguably, the practices of these informal business tourists are shaping new economic spaces in urban Southern Africa. The drivers and multiple challenges of women participants are explored through a synthesis of the recorded experiences of Zimbabwean women.