Wildlife Tourism Dynamics in Southern Africa: A Synthesis

Wildlife tourism research epistemology is a topic of ongoing debate and discussion (Benckendorff & Zehrer, 2013). To a certain extent, research on wildlife tourism is fragmented and eclectic (Kanta et al., 2021). In its endeavour to join the debate, this volume reached a dual postulation that wildlife tourism has both positive and negative impacts. The positive impacts include the development of communities and funding for protecting the environment and habitats. In contrast, it also negatively impacts the environment, host communities, and animals in its aim to promote conservation and drive development. There is no doubt that wildlife tourism has grown in recent years, due to the market it keeps attracting. Indications are that it will continue to grow as the number of tourists who specifically want to see wildlife is increasing. These tourists display a wide range of heterogeneous attributes such as varied age groups, sex, socioeconomic backgrounds, and motivations (Khanra et al., 2021). This is a promising indication that the wildlife tourism market exists and continues to grow. In its growth trajectories, wildlife tourism has taken diverse forms. The key diverse forms of wildlife tourism are collectively categorized as consumptive and non-consumptive wildlife tourism. Non-consumptive wildlife tourism is generally considered a useful tool for engaging people with nature, to make them understand why nature is important to human beings and to assess how memorable experiences with wildlife and the environment can change the thinking of humankind (Auster et al., 2020; Kanta et al., 2021).