Drawing on his thirty years of consultancy experience with the World Bank, the UN Development Programme, the African Union, and UNICEF, leading tourism and development expert Garth Allen offers a deep dive into the socio-political dynamics that have shaped tourism in South Africa since its first democratic elections in 1994. In so doing, Allen engages a vast range of burgeoning debates on the potential and limits of sustainable socio-economic development in Africa and throughout the Global South. Bringing all this to bear on key tourism phenomena such as cultural tourism, eco-tourism, pro-poor tourism, event tourism, and medical tourism, Allen shows what varies according to local contexts, and at the same time, what remains consistent across Africa and other areas of the Global South, all of which brings into focus those forces within the international political economy that drive both tourism and development.

For its broad theoretical coverage and its rich empirical detail drawing on the author’s first-hand experience, this book is an essential resource for upper-level students and researchers interested in international tourism studies, political economics, international development, and the international political economics of Africa and the Global South.