The Invisible Giant: How Local South Africans Keep the Tourism Economy Alive

South African tourism is often viewed through an international lens: a foreign visitor on a game drive in Kruger National Park, or a wine-tasting itinerary through Stellenbosch. However, the strongest engine of the tourism economy is not the overseas visitor. It is the South African who travels domestically, often sustaining businesses in townships, villages and rural economies that are largely invisible from the mainstream tourism economy.

Redefining the Tourist

International arrivals make headlines, and 2025 was a record year. South Africa welcomed 10.5 million international tourists, up 17.7% on 2024 and 2.6% above the 2019 pre-pandemic level. Measured by trip volume and total spend, however, domestic travel is larger by a wide margin. The Department of Tourism’s 2026/27 Budget Vote showed that South Africans undertook 44.7 million overnight trips in 2025, generating R111.6 billion in tourism revenue. Over half of those trips, some 24.1 million, were to visit friends and relatives, travel on which most people use no paid accommodation at all. Include Statistics South Africa’s Tourism Satellite Account and the gap grows: domestic tourism expenditure reached R665.3 billion in 2024, a figure that includes business travel and transport, against R113.9 billion from international visitors.

The macroeconomic footprint is immense. Statistics South Africa’s Tourism Satellite Account shows that in 2024, Tourism Direct GDP reached 4.9% of national GDP, up from 3.7% in 2019 and ahead of construction, agriculture and utilities. In the same year, the sector supported 953 981 direct jobs — 5.7% of the labour force, or one in every 18 working South Africans.

Research shows that visiting friends and relatives is the largest single driver of domestic tourism in South Africa, rooted deeply in historical migration patterns. This travel is remarkably resilient: South Africans continue to travel for cultural obligations, including funerals, weddings and religious gatherings, even during economic downturns. Crucially, much of this spending bypasses multinational hotel chains and flows instead into inter-provincial bus lines, minibus-taxi operators, township vendors and rural stayovers.

Tourism Outside the Formal Sector

Whether the reason for the trip is a wedding or a work deadline, the money often lands in the same places. Township hubs, shisanyamas and community venues work as day-trip attractions, while seasonal religious pilgrimages move large numbers of people through local transport and informal retail. Rural business travel extends well beyond corporate delegates at convention centres. It includes site managers, NGO workers and government officials who spend weeks at a time in places with no major hotel chains. A single rural site visit leaves a dense local footprint and sees capital circulating within the community instead of leaking to a head office elsewhere.

Who Serves the Traveller?

Across five mining host communities in Limpopo and North West, roughly 700 small entrepreneurs are being supported through the Township Economy Programme, an initiative funded by one of our mining partners, managed through the Tshikululu Trust by Tshikululu Social Investments NPC, and implemented by the Lima Rural Development Foundation. It was never designed as a tourism intervention, but it has become one anyway, with these small businesses slotting into the tourism economy both directly and indirectly.

In Bokamoso, Tembela Nogaga makes beadwork and design pieces, the kind of products that make perfect souvenirs, through IYOTI Crafts and Design. In Hospital View, Mahwelereng, Khotso Pretty Legodi cooks and sells fresh meals. A few streets away, Maureen Malindisa runs MPM Fresh Produce on a busy road, selling cold drinks and snacks for long drives home. In Mosesetjane, Hellen Lamola does hair and nails for weddings, funerals and homecomings. And at Ga-Chuene, Bella Makhafola caters weddings, church events and school functions through Serampana Deco Florist. She employs twelve people, while mentoring eleven other entrepreneurs through the programme.

Kagiso Kgwadi runs LK Transport and Tours out of Sandfontein and sees tourism as his primary offering. Booking vehicles for travellers is standard, but Kagiso’s business goes the extra mile with bespoke, all-inclusive experiences. Accommodation, travel, and activities are worked out for every trip whether it’s a wedding party to Sun City or a family run across the border to Mozambique. He’s building a successful tourism enterprise in a village that’s locked out of mainstream tourism strategies and budgets.

None of these business owners fit traditional sector codes, yet each earns a sizeable chunk from domestic travellers. Until recently, few had the systems to manage their finances and track performance. The Township Economy Programme does not provide capital in the abstract. It gives participants training, mentorship and a small grant paid straight to a supplier. Stock and equipment are important, but the return that matters is a stable business that sustains jobs and is growing steadily to provide more.

The Policy Disconnect

In May 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa described tourism as having “the unique ability to bring economic activity into rural and underdeveloped areas”. He recognised that the sector opens opportunities for young people, women-owned businesses and informal traders. The R2.54 billion tourism allocation for 2026/27 is explicitly aimed at ensuring more townships, dorpies and villages benefit. The test is whether this money reaches the local tour business and the crafts shop, or stops at the chalet and the events facility.

Despite their structural contribution, informal domestic tourism businesses face steep barriers, particularly around collateral requirements from commercial lenders. Micro-grants and supplier-paid interventions show what’s possible when the collateral barrier is removed, but they reach only a fraction of the businesses that need them. To truly harness tourism for economic development, national policy and infrastructure spending must open the tourism investment pipeline to micro-enterprises. The Tourism Infrastructure Investment Summit screens projects for investment readiness — a bankability standard no township guest house or catering business can currently meet. A tier for enterprises under R1 million in turnover would change who gets to be in the pipeline at all.

This Tourism Month, the question worth asking is not how many international arrivals South Africa can attract. It is whether the rand a South African spends getting to a funeral in Mokopane, a wedding in Northam or a homecoming in Rustenburg stays in the community it passes through. Much of it already does — through a beadwork stall in Bokamoso, a kitchen in Mahwelereng, a salon in Mosesetjane, a tour operator in Sandfontein who is building a local tourism business. Backing initiatives like the Township Economy Programme ensures that these businesses, and the provinces that don’t usually make the postcard, can reach their full potential. 

Reference Sources

• Statistics South Africa, International Tourism 2025, Report No. 03-51-02 (2025), released 26 March 2026.
• Statistics South Africa, Tourism Satellite Account for South Africa, 2024 (released March 2026) — Tourism Direct GDP, employment and tourism expenditure.
• Township Economy Programme: programme overview and Q2 2026 delivery report (Valterra Platinum / Tshikululu Social Investments / Lima Rural Development Foundation), 2026.
• Minister of Tourism Patricia de Lille, Tourism Department Budget Vote 2026/27, National Council of Provinces, 24 June 2026.
• Kagiso Kgwadi, Director, LK Transport and Tours (LK Trading and Project), recorded interview, 27 August 2026.
• ZamaNdosi Cele, “The road less travelled: how rural and township tourism are saving South African economies”, IOL Travel, 14 May 2026.
• Rogerson, C.M., “Revisiting VFR tourism in South Africa”, University of Johannesburg.