The Making of a ‘Big 5’ Game Reserve as an Urban Tourism Destination: Dinokeng, South Africa

Abstract

Since 2000, against the background of chronically high levels of city unemployment and of the stagnation or rundown of the manufacturing sector, many urban governments across South Africa pivoted towards the building of competitive tourism economies as an anchor for local economic development, employment creation and small enterprise development. With the tourism sector being the most popular sectoral focus for local economic development programming in South Africa, the evolution of place-based development initiatives around tourism is a topic of policy relevance. This paper contributes to tourism scholarship concerning new product innovation and development for urban tourism in South Africa. It investigates the unfolding planning and challenges of a unique tourism development project for the creation of a ‘big 5’ game reserve located on the periphery of the country’s major metropolitan complex and economic hub, Gauteng province. The evolution of the project and the challenges of destination development are themes under scrutiny.

Stakeholder perspectives concerning the progress of South Africa’s urban ecotourism destination

“…Geography was critical for the project's development as Dinokeng is located in close proximity also to South Africa's major airport gateway and transit point for many tourists -many on short business visits and thus often without the opportunity to travel to experience the 'big 5' in their natural surroundings in game reserves such as Kruger National Park. It was considered that the planning of an 'All-Africa' tourism destination around a Big Five game reserve combining linkages of culture and nature would offer an opportunity to promote Gauteng as a comprehensive tourism product (Burton et al, 2020). The project was targeted also to boost economic development in the most economically underdeveloped part of Gauteng Province.…”

“…This was an attempt to attract private sector investment into the economically depressed region so that tourism could serve as a key sector for growth. In the initial planning of the project in the late 1990s it was intended to grow and cover an area of over 100.000 ha by extending beyond Gauteng Province into conservation land in both Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces (Burton et al, 2020). Figure 1 shows the project's location.…”

“…Arguably, Dinokeng's major conservation risk remained its lack of expansion in terms of land (Burton et al, 2020). The expansion of reserve was described as a major barrier for Dinokeng.…”

“…It is against this backdrop that in this paper the focus is on an urban ecotourism destination that has been developed in South Africa, namely Dinokeng in the Tshwane metropolitan area which is centred around the city of Pretoria. Dinokeng is distinguished by the fact that it hosts a Big Five (elephant, lion, leopard, rhino and buffalo) game reserve in a metropolitan area (Burton et al, 2020). It represents a distinctive form of niche tourism that has been innovated in urban South Africa.…”

The Planning Challenges of Extended Metropolitan Areas: Issues From South Africa

“…The Tshwane metropolitan area is further distinguished by the establishment within its boundaries of a 'big five' game reserve within its extended metropolitan region. The evolution of the Dinokeng Game Reserve and its contribution to the urban tourism economy is traced by Burton et al (2020).…”