A number of staff members of the School of Economics are closely involved in Tourism Economics research with our colleagues from the TREES research area (Tourism Research in Economics, Environs and Society). The economists’ contribution is in modelling the drivers of tourism demand, or determining the economic impact of tourism spending.

September is tourism month and for the past two year we have been making posts linking our research to the challenges and opportunities in this sector. We also participate in a workshop that TREES hosts in Potchefstroom.

Tourism month 2013:

In the past few weeks we have made a number of posts about our Tourism research:

• Serena Lucrezi wrote about scuba diving and the environment.
• Marco Scholtz and Elmarie Slabbert wrote about events and their community impact.
• Stefan Kruger wrote about tourism and quality of life.
• Andrea Saayman wrote about events research at a religious gathering.

Staff of the School of Economic and TREES also participated in a workshop about events tourism here in Potchefstroom.

Participants at the Events workshop

There was a line-up of international experts in the field:

• Judith Mair spoke about the challenges of and barriers to green events.
• Jack Carlson look at sustaining the environment for events.
• Marianna Sigala examined social media and events
• Noelle O’Connor talked about the global reach of St Patrick’s Day.

The local speakers were Waldo Krugell on methods to get people to pay for green events, Andrea Saayman on the economic impact of sports events and Elmarie Slabbert of the community impact of events.

Tourism month 2012:

Linking tourism and Economics

We have already made a number of posts about our research on this blog:

• Is South Africa a tourist shopping destination?
• The economic impact of the KKNK.
• The impact of tourism on poverty in South Africa.
• Does conservation make sense to local communities?
• Marathons, carbon footprints and willingness to pay.
• “Green” tourism economics.

In September 2012 we linked our research to Tourism Month celebrations. In addition to the blog posts we also participated in two events:

• On the 17th of September TREES hosted a Tourism Forecasting Workshop, and
• On the 27th of September we held a Green tourism seminar.

For Tourism Month Prof Saayman did a radio interview with Dane Beisheim of OFM. It was all about the benefits that the concerts by big-name artists have for South Africa – The economic impact of Lady Gaga!? You can listen to the MP3 audio clip here:

Prof Saayman also spoke to Dane about World Tourism Day 2012. You can listen to the MP3 audio clip here:

Prof Krugell also did a quick interview about the research on “green” tourism. You can listen to the MP3 audio clip here: