Being near the action: bed and breakfast and guesthouse entrepreneurs and the hosting of black South African domestic tourists in the Cape Town townships
{"title":"Being near the action: bed and breakfast and guesthouse entrepreneurs and the hosting of black South African domestic tourists in the Cape Town townships","authors":"Katrina T. Greene","doi":"10.1080/17450101.2022.2082883","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>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.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51457,"journal":{"name":"Mobilities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mobilities","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S174501012200474X","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
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.
期刊介绍:
Mobilities examines both the large-scale movements of people, objects, capital, and information across the world, as well as more local processes of daily transportation, movement through public and private spaces, and the travel of material things in everyday life. Recent developments in transportation and communications infrastructures, along with new social and cultural practices of mobility, present new challenges for the coordination and governance of mobilities and for the protection of mobility rights and access. This has elicited many new research methods and theories relevant for understanding the connections between diverse mobilities and immobilities.