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Transitions to low-carbon energy are central to sustainability transitions, with electricity being a pressing current concern both in South Africa and globally. Economic, social, institutional, and political factors often make transitioning to renewable electricity particularly complex. In this article, we examine electricity transitions in tourism from a global South context, combining evolutionary economic geography (EEG) concepts with the multi-level perspective (MLP). Our findings point to strong exogenous lock-in factors working against an electricity transition in South African tourism. A historic dependence on coal, along with complex place-based factors lock the country into a carbon-intensive electricity path at the national electricity infrastructure level. In turn, these complexities adversely affect an electricity transition in the tourism sector. However, energy policy change along with innovation by tourism actors is emergent stimuli for creating low-carbon electricity paths. More specifically, recent climate change mitigation policies, the increasing unreliability of grid electricity, and legislative reforms are significant factors encouraging the renewal of the electricity system. At the same time, it is becoming more cost-effective for businesses, including tourism establishments, to install renewables. The South African case contributes to the emerging body of literature on sustainability transitions in tourism. It does this by showing that to achieve a just energy transition, proper appraisal of path-dependent structural challenges is needed to understand the nature and levels of change required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to investigate recent urban space-making practices and imaginaries of two different civic actors: Swakopmund City Tour, operated by Namibian Germans depicting the history of Swakopmund linked to German heritage, and a group of Herero activists around Swakopmund Genocide Museum, challenging the monopoly in framing representations of urban heritage and history, and presenting alternative memory narratives. The aim is to explore how the official memory is dealt with in present day-remembrance policies and practices, and how it is challenged by alternative memory driven by Herero activists. Conceptually, the notion of a mnemoscape (Kössler, 2012) is used, including both intangible and tangible aspects of the remembrance of collective experience. Methodologically, the paper is largely based on the outcomes of a short fieldwork in the urban environment of Swakopmund in 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Co-Editors-in-Chief of Tourism Geographies, Joseph M. Cheer and Mary Mostafanezhad, express their gratitude to the leadership team for their efforts in 2023. The journal is now ranked first in Tourism, Hospitality, and Leisure Management and second in Geography, Planning, and Development. This achievement was made possible by the collective efforts of the editorial team, board members, reviewers, authors, and publication staff. The editors extend their thanks to all the reviewers for their valuable contributions and invite them to attend upcoming meetings. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores the sexualized nature of the gay tourism industry and examines how 'pink dollar' organizations tacitly encourage incidences of sexual harassment from customers. Drawing on qualitative data from two popular gay tourism destinations, the article shows the embeddedness of sex, as a selling point, in the industry which creates blurred lines between service, sexuality, and sex. This consequently leads to sexual harassment by customers which is accepted and to which workers consent. Consent is driven by the hyper‐sexualization of the workplace and the power imbalance within the service triangle and the interaction with the customer and the precarious nature of the sector. Mirroring Burawoy's (1979) idea of employees consenting (giving in) to organizational norms, we contribute to theory by suggesting that the power imbalance constructed within the service triangle gives high interactive power to the customer to harass workers without evident consequences for their misbehavior, whilst the latter consent and accept this as part of the job, due to the limited support from management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how black female bed and breakfast (B&B) and guesthouse entrepreneurs in the black townships of Cape Town, South Africa were providing accommodations to black South African domestic tourists that allowed these tourists to 'be near the action' in the townships. 'Being near the action' refers to being able to conveniently attend various life-cycle events, such as weddings, funerals, and circumcision celebrations that involve friends and/or family, or engage in work, business, and other activities in the townships. This research contributes to tourism mobilities studies by explaining how these entrepreneurs impacted and were being impacted by domestic tourism and how the social spaces or 'moorings' of the entrepreneurs' accommodations produced and reproduced social and cultural life. In addition, this study provides an understanding of tourism in Africa, and specifically domestic tourism in South Africa, related to the discretionary mobilities of a growing population of middle-class black South Africans. For this study, data was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with black female B&Bs and guesthouse entrepreneurs in the townships of Langa, Gugulethu, and Khayelitsha. The article also includes a discussion of the possible implications of the COVID-19 pandemic's halting of travel mobilities on the economic sustainability of these entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most entrepreneurship studies have an urban focus, and it is studied mainly from the perspective of opportunity exploitation. Rural entrepreneurship presents different characteristics, and it requires analysis from a resource-based view since this kind of entrepreneurial behavior takes place in rural communities under resource constraints. The sustainable livelihood perspective represents a relevant framework in rural entrepreneurship, considering resources and capacities to face poverty in rural areas. Therefore, this study presents a literature review to identify current and emerging issues in rural entrepreneurship from a sustainable livelihood framework. The literature review identifies that the main concepts involved in rural entrepreneurship and sustainable livelihood are women, poverty alleviation, youth, social entrepreneurship, and institutions. Likewise, social capital and human capital prevail as the most relevant capitals in the analyzed documents. The study offers research opportunities in emerging issues related to social entrepreneurship, governance and institutions, livelihood growth, and eco-entrepreneurship for extending the boundaries of rural entrepreneurship from the sustainable livelihood framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk, uncertainty and impoverishment of the factors for production have changed rural development strategies which were traditionally based on agricultural activities. The objective of the study was to examine the impact of cultural and heritage tourism as a basic strategy for rural survival and active social process in which households construct diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities for survival and well-being in Sehlabathebe National Park. The study adopted a mixed method design. Through stratified random sampling researchers administered questionnaires to 286 households in 12 villages and conducted in-depth interviews to a snowball sample of 11 experts. The results show that diversification of rural livelihoods using cultural and heritage tourism was found to be an important element in catering for tourist's interests. Despite the importance of cultural and heritage tourism in livelihood diversification, its impact was found to be low in reducing house vulnerability and poverty. This paper contributes to the current discourses on cultural and heritage tourism as a tool for reducing shocks, vulnerability and poverty in the rural areas as to achieve household food security. Hence, the ownership of property such as land or livestock or a collection of different activities can give sufficient remuneration for survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation has become critical for many countries in the Global South, particularly in responding to challenges such as slow economic growth, primary commodity dependence, and socio-economic inequalities. Since 1996, the National System of Innovation (NSI) approach has been adopted by policymakers in South Africa in order to address these concerns. There are two distinct and complementary modes of innovation: (1) Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), which focuses on the promotion and commercialization of research and development (R&D); and (2) Doing, Using and Interacting (DUI), which involves business strategies, knowledge sharing among employees, and interactive learning between users and producers. In this article, we analyze the modes of innovation used by small, medium, and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) in South Africa, and identify their potential to use business model innovation to help tackle social challenges. Based on a Latent Class Analysis of online survey data collected from SMMEs in the Gauteng Province, we found that 82% used the DUI mode, 18% used the STI mode, and 72% expressed confidence that their innovative solutions could help tackle social challenges. We therefore recommend that policymakers further incentivize the STI mode within SMMEs, in order to more effectively address social inclusion problems in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]