4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37773

Browse

Filters

2021 - 20242

Settings

Subject: search.filters.subject.Tourism

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Proposing the establishment of a tourist-generated-video library for destination marketing by tourism organisations
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Lehutjo, Tshepo
    Tourist-generated media content is a phenomenon that has become increasingly popular in recent years on social media platforms; to a point where many travel bloggers have even taken it on as a full-time occupation to meet the growing customer/tourist demand for it. On the other hand, tourism organisations and the industry at large have not been at the ready to take advantage of these technological developments. The prevailing explanation for this contrast is that tourism organisations do not have the know-how nor the time to invest in these technologies as they are typically staffed by small, specialised teams. As a result, entrepreneurs may investigate this identified gap to assist tourism organisations in meeting customer demands for: authentic tourist-generated videos while these customers are in the discovery and decision- making process of before their travel journey. Data was gathered remotely through publicly available platforms on the Internet, using a close-ended questionnaire to capture responses. The responses were then processed to generate descriptive statistics to elaborate on the following: the proportion of South African tourism organisations currently using the Facebook platform was determined to gauge the size of the market. Further, the extent of video use and other factors on the platform was determined, within the attraction and engagement constructs of the Digital Marketing Framework. This was done to understand how and when tourist-generated videos are used, if at all, and what other methods tourism organisations apply to attract or engage customers. Based off the findings, which show that South African tourism organisations have a low social media engagement rate with tourists and make very little use of video (which is proven to be more engaging and better for sales conversion) as a form of media content – be it tourist generated or not. This research thus proposes the use of a tourist-generated-video library that tourism organisations will pay to access so that they may use such videos to market destinations on their social media profiles and websites.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The holiday climate index: applicability and suitability for the South African context
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Kristensen, Daniella; Fitchett, Jennifer
    Tourism is one of the largest economic sectors and continues to grow at a rapid pace. This sector is under threat by climate change, with Africa deemed to be most vulnerable to these changes. The projected climatic changes and increase in occurrence and intensity of extreme events over South Africa has an impact on overall tourism comfortability. Quantifying the climatic suitability of tourist destinations has been achieved through tourism climate indices. Some of these indices cover all tourism activities and some are specific to a tourism type (e.g., snow tourism). The Holiday Climate Index (HCI) was developed to determine climactic comfortability of beach and urban destinations and to address the limitations of previous indices. This study will provide the first determination of the appropriateness of the HCI for the South African context and calculations of the HCI for destinations across South Africa. The mean annual HCIurban and HCIbeach scores for the longest continuous period of each destination reveal that the majority of destinations demonstrate HCIurban and HCIbeach scores between 70 and 79 and are considered to have ‘very good’ climatic conditions for tourism. An exception is the HCIurban result for Durban which is scored as ‘good’. Generally, the highest HCI scores were calculated for Cape Town on the west coast, while the lowest HCI scores were calculated for Durban on the east coast. It was determined that McBoyle’s (2001) winter season peak distribution is applicable to seven of the 13 HCIurban and three of the five HCIbeach destinations. This indicates that the winter season is most suitable for tourism for most destinations. In comparing the results of destinations where both the HCIurban and HCIbeach are applicable, it was determined that all destinations, with the exception of Durban, have a minimal difference in the average annual HCI scores. Durban recorded a notable difference which demonstrated that the destination would be more suitable for beach tourism. The results of this study can be used to quantify the impacts of climate change on the tourism sector and assist tourism stakeholders in developing the capacity to adapt to the projected changes.