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The paper examines the theoretical interconnection between the concepts of voluntourism, community-based tourism, and regenerative tourism. Voluntourism, widely criticized for its implementations unethical towards local environment and community, is re-evaluated in the light of community-based and regenerative tourism principles including unequal power dynamics and questionable long-term benefits to host communities. This paper claims that re-imagining voluntourism within the framework of regenerative tourism offers a new perspective. Regenerative tourism, characterized by its commitment to restoring, revitalizing, and enhancing the wellbeing of both natural environments and local communities, can serve as a guiding principle for voluntourism programs. Community-based tourism is integral to this theoretical exploration, as it emphasizes local participation, cultural and natural preservation, and economic empowerment. When voluntourism aligns with community-based tourism principles, it shifts its focus from shortterm, self-serving actions to responsible community-driven initiatives. By channelling the motivation and resources of volunteers towards community-led regenerative initiatives, voluntourism can contribute to positive, lasting impacts. Ethical reflection is done within the actors only. This paper is theoretical; however, its purpose is in the pragmatism of tourism concept development. It concludes to enhance the understanding of voluntourism's potential to transition from a problematic form of tourism to an ethical and responsible force for change. By reconciling voluntourism with the principles of regenerative tourism and community-based tourism, this paper aims to provide a theoretical foundation for the development of more responsible and sustainable tourism practices. In doing so, it strives to contribute to the theoretical knowledge surrounding alternative and socially sustainable tourism concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several decades, the southern African region, with its diverse natural and cultural attractions, has been an uninterrupted prime destination for sustainable tourism. However, a devastating Covid-19 pandemic presented severe challenges to the global tourism industry, crippling several businesses. The effect was more pronounced especially in the global south, including southern Africa which is confronted by a multitude of challenges. Meanwhile, this crisis presented opportunities for the adoption of sustainable tourism practices in the post-Covid era. This paper provides insights into sustainable tourism practices in the post-Covid era, drawing lessons on how the southern African region survived the crisis. The paper discusses the concept of sustainable tourism and its importance in the post-Covid era. Furthermore, it explores the impact of the pandemic on the tourism industry in southern Africa and the need for sustainable tourism practices. Sustainable tourism practices that have been adopted in the region, such as community-based tourism, eco-tourism, and responsible tourism are discussed. This paper highlights the lessons that can be learned from sustainable tourism practices in southern Africa in the post-Covid era. These lessons can be applied globally to promote sustainable tourism and ensure the resilience of the tourism industry in the face of future crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the government of Tanzania has legalized the sale of game meat under special rules namely the Wildlife Conservation (Game Meat Selling) Regulations of 2020 as an effort to curb illegal hunting. The regulations mention tourist hunting as one of the sources of commercial game meat. Other sources include resident hunting; wildlife farms/ranches/zoos; and culling, cropping, and control of problem animals. In this paper we examine the performance of tourist hunting, legal game meat in the country, and its regulatory framework from the perspectives of key stakeholders, including both public and private or non-state stakeholders. We use a variant of Likert's methods of summated ratings and the cumulative ordinal regression model to analyse and compare the opinions of stakeholders. We found that there are still challenges, especially related to sources of wild animals. Operators of game meat facilities find it difficult to source game meat from tourist hunting companies and the latter are not willing to offer the meat to licensed operators of game meat shops. Our results support the hypothesis that authorization of the game meat trade can serve as one of the boldest conservation tools to mitigate illegal poaching if well-planned and regulated. The results of the cumulative ordinal regression model predict an improvement of 42% in the performance of regulatory framework per unit improvement in the procedures for application and registration of game meat selling facilities (p = 0.010). The paper recommends leveraging stakeholders' active engagement and strengthening cooperation between game meat value chain actors and law-enforcement authorities. An innovative participatory model for enforcing game meat sanitary and safety regulations is also recommended to avoid potential health risks to consumers. It underscores the importance of institutional capacity building, awareness creation, and adequate funding in the fight against illegal hunting and game meat trade. In order for the country to be able to achieve sustainable game meat trade in the country, the challenge of limited wild animal sources has to be addressed, possibly by supporting the establishment of privately owned wild animal farms, ranches, and zoos, this also has its own challenges that need to be addressed too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid global sustainability challenges, such as climate change, companies operating in different industries face increasing demands for accountability and transparency. To meet these demands, sustainability reporting (SR) has become a mainstream business practice in communicating companies' positive and negative sustainability impacts. This short paper aims to increase our understanding of how companies may release negative information while seeking to maintain their legitimacy. For this purpose, the paper bridges the gap between legitimacy strategies, impression management and neutralisation techniques by reviewing their associated literature. The nature of neutralisation techniques and how organisations use them in the SR context is underexplored by scholars. Finally, the paper presents prospective discussions of an ongoing study that examines negative sustainability disclosure in the tourism transportation context, namely the airlines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rebuilding is a prominent theme in a post pandemic era where economies are looking to attract all opportunities to recover. Tourism has always been a key driver to boost economies particularly in countries which are rich in cultural diversity and natural beauty. South Africa, which already has a thriving tourism industry, has seen an increase in medical tourists who are motivated by the desire to avoid high healthcare costs, long wait times for services and specific procedures that are not offered in their own countries. South Africa's private healthcare system is world-class for medical tourism because it is supported by a thriving medical insurance market. The rise of medical tourism in South Africa has stemmed from synergies formed with the private sector healthcare system because of the growth of tourism. Currently, only private sector hospitals are involved in rendering services related to medical tourism. The current rollout of the National Health Insurance (NHI) poses as an opportunity for the public healthcare sector to also benefit from the revenue generated by medical tourism, however there are challenges that exist that must be alleviated. This paper will begin with an overview of the medical tourism and healthcare sectors in South Africa based on secondary research conducted. Thereafter the empirical data highlighting challenges experienced at selected public central hospitals in South Africa will be presented. The paper will then explore the collaboration potential of the tourism and healthcare industries to overcome the challenges presented. Recommendations will be contributory in highlighting the need for revenue to restore trust in the public healthcare sector and boost medical tourism. The empirical study, through adopting a descriptive exploratory paradigm, emphasises the quantitative method used to gather data from a purposive sample with the use of a questionnaire. Data collected from 322 respondents revealed that the daily challenges, underpinned by a severe lack of funding at the selected public central hospitals in South Africa, inhibit high quality service delivery, making the public healthcare sector an undesirable option for medical tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable tourism and local economic development as a mechanism for religious pilgrimages in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). This is particularly pertinent for religious pilgrimages in KZN province which boosts historical landmarks and pilgrimage destinations. Pilgrimage tourism and several other forms of tourism related to it have significant affinities to the tenets of sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to examine the complications that could arise from religious pilgrimages' potential as a form of travel that, once implemented, would be beneficial for sustainable tourism and local economic development (LED). This paper further intends to assess the pilgrimage destinations to be viewed as a mechanism for local economic development. A quantitative research design was employed, as the nature of this research necessitates the use of numerical data and descriptive statistics to draw conclusions. A standardised questionnaire was used to collect data from 410 respondents selected using a convenience sampling technique from different pilgrimage destinations in KZN, South Africa. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses were conducted using IBM's SPSS version 28 sotiware. The pilgrims and local communities' perceptions of socio-economic contribution indicate that the availability of tourism facilities might be perceived as a socio-economic contributor to pilgrimage destinations. The findings further reveal that African religious pilgrimages can be sustainable and be a local economic development catalyst in KwaZulu-Natal. The study recommends that the South African National Christian Forum (SANCF), in collaboration with the South African government (national and provincial), develop an operational plan to provide business education, entrepreneurial skills, and relevant support to local communities surrounding religious pilgrimages or religious destinations, to empower them to contribute to the development of the local economy. This will assist to reduce South Africa's high unemployment rate, particularly in less developed regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African institutions of higher learning are responsible for producing graduates who are well-prepared for the demands of the world of work. To meet this imperative, universities have adopted the use of graduate attributes (GAs) to develop and showcase their graduates' skills and competencies. Furthermore, the current economic landscape places pressure on universities to produce highly skilled and employable graduates. Despite the recognised significance of GAs, lecturers often encounter difficulties when attempting to integrate them into the curriculum. The problem (gap), however, is that lecturers find it difficult to integrate these GAs for various reasons, including a lack of comprehensive understanding, effective teaching methods, and reliable assessment strategies of GAs. Moreover, the absence of structured training programs for lecturers on how to integrate GAs into the curriculum is a hindrance to the GAs' successful implementation. This paper aims to determine the extent to which the GAs have been implemented within the hospitality curriculum in South Africa. A desktop review study was conducted and analysed according to identified themes. The findings propose developing the framework, a guiding tool, that will enable academic institutions to integrate GAs into their curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between entrepreneurial education (ED) and youths' entrepreneurial intention (EI) towards starting tourism businesses. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The study used purposive sampling method of the non-probability sampling design to select 400 youths living in different regions of the King Cetshwayo District Municipality (KCDM), KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. The methodology employed partial least squares - structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS software version 4.0.8.5 to assess the relationships among the construct variables. The results show a significant positive relationship between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial intention. Recommendations are offered to the KCDM decision-makers (business support offices), National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), as well as Tourism KwaZulu-Natal to encourage youth entrepreneurship. South African higher education leaders and policymakers can benefit from these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores tourism students' perceptions of blended learning (BL) and examines the correlations between BL statements, student academic performance (AP), and the level of satisfaction with blended courses (BCs). A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from 166 randomly selected tourism students in a comprehensive University in South Africa. For data analysis, IBM SPSS Statistics 29.0 (IBM Corporation, 2022) software was used. The results indicate that most tourism students had positive perceptions of BL based on their degrees of AP and satisfaction with the BC. Most tourism students claim that they are not comfortable completing assignments and taking assessments online. The results further reveal that students they are frequently disappointed with the assessment approach of online discussions. The study recommends that the university studied conduct a variety of reform programmes geared at strengthening tourism lecturers' BL abilities (such as upgrading online assessment methodologies and lecture design). To encourage learning involvement, tourism lecturers could improve students' perceptions of the BL platform in their instructional design. This will gradually improve tourism students' low perceptions of BL, as identified in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]