Thapelo Tlailana | Social Investment Analyst | Tshikululu Social Investments | mail me |
South African tourism is often viewed through an international lens. A foreign visitor might take a game drive in Kruger National Park or follow 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. These travellers often sustain businesses in townships, villages and rural economies that remain largely invisible from the mainstream tourism economy.
Redefining the tourist to keep the tourism economy alive
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. However, domestic travel is larger by a wide margin when measured by trip volume and total spend.
The Department of Tourism’s 2026/27 Budget Vote showed that South Africans undertook 44.7 million overnight trips in 2025. These trips generated R111.6 billion in tourism revenue. Over half of those trips, some 24.1 million, involved visiting friends and relatives. On these trips, most people use no paid accommodation at all.
Including Statistics South Africa’s Tourism Satellite Account, the gap grows. Domestic tourism expenditure reached R665.3 billion in 2024. That figure includes business travel and transport, compared with R113.9 billion from international visitors.
This is where redefining the tourist becomes important. The domestic traveller is not simply a secondary participant in the tourism economy. Their movement sustains a much broader network of local businesses and services.
The macroeconomic footprint is immense. Statistics South Africa’s Tourism Satellite Account shows that Tourism Direct GDP reached 4.9% of national GDP in 2024. That figure rose from 3.7% in 2019 and moved ahead of construction, agriculture and utilities.
In the same year, the sector supported 953 981 direct jobs. That represented 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. This pattern has deep roots 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. Instead, it flows 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.
Meanwhile, seasonal religious pilgrimages move large numbers of people through local transport and informal retail. Rural business travel also 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. It also 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. One of our mining partners funds the initiative. Tshikululu Trust, through Tshikululu Social Investments NPC, manages it, while the Lima Rural Development Foundation implements it.
The programme was never designed as a tourism intervention. However, it has become one anyway. These small businesses now slot into the tourism economy both directly and indirectly.
In Bokamoso, Tembela Nogaga makes beadwork and design pieces through IYOTI Crafts and Design. These products make perfect souvenirs.
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. She sells cold drinks and snacks for long drives home.
In Mosesetjane, Hellen Lamola does hair and nails for weddings, funerals and homecomings. At Ga-Chuene, Bella Makhafola caters for 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.
He works out accommodation, travel and activities for every trip. These trips can involve a wedding party travelling 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. His business demonstrates another dimension of redefining the tourist.
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.
Instead, it gives participants training, mentorship and a small grant paid straight to a supplier. Stock and equipment are important. However, the return that matters is a stable business that sustains jobs and grows 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 explicitly aims to ensure that more townships, dorpies and villages benefit.
The test is whether this money reaches the local tour business and the crafts shop. Alternatively, it could stop at the chalet and the events facility. Despite their structural contribution, informal domestic tourism businesses face steep barriers. Commercial lenders, in particular, often require collateral.
Micro-grants and supplier-paid interventions show what’s possible when organisations remove the collateral barrier. However, these interventions 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. This creates a bankability standard that 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.
The question worth asking is not how many international arrivals South Africa can attract. Instead, 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. It flows through a beadwork stall in Bokamoso, a kitchen in Mahwelereng, a salon in Mosesetjane and a tour operator in Sandfontein who is building a local tourism business.
In conclusion
Backing initiatives like the Township Economy Programme ensures that these businesses can reach their full potential. It also helps the provinces that don’t usually make the postcard reach their full potential.
Ultimately, redefining the tourist means recognising the millions of South Africans whose journeys sustain local economies every day. Their travel may not always feature in international tourism campaigns, but it remains central to the country’s tourism economy.
