Cultural Heritage and Tourism in Africa

Cultural Heritage and Tourism in Africa examines the multiple and diverse manifestations of cultural heritage-based tourism in Africa from a regional, social science, and sustainability perspective.

This book delivers a comprehensive treatise on the interdependent concepts of cultural heritage and tourism. Heritage is one of the most pervasive tourism assets worldwide and lies at the foundations of tourism in many localities, including Africa. However, despite its salience, there has not been a systematic examination of Africa’s heritage resources, markets, policies, practices, successes, and challenges in a tourism framework, despite the continent’s immense heritage value. This book reviews the different types of heritages that pervade the cultural environment of Africa and comprises its vast heritagescapes. It also examines the increasing potential for the growth of heritage tourism throughout the entire continent. The contributions in this volume delve into current thinking about space and place and their effects on heritage, mobilities, globalization, colonialism and indigeneity, conflict, identity and nation-building, connections with other regions through migration and the slave trade, and a greater emphasis on the ordinary heritage of Africa, which has long been ignored by tourism scholars and industry representatives. The chapters herein are authored by Africa specialists, most being from Africa, offering a truly African perspective. The chapters are conceptually rigorous and empirically rich with examples from all regions of the African continent.

This unparalleled interdisciplinary glimpse at cultural heritage and tourism in Africa delivers strong value and is a vital resource for all students and researchers of tourism, cultural studies, heritage studies, geography, anthropology, sociology, history, and global studies.

Dallen J. Timothy is Professor of Community Resources and Development, and Senior Sustainability Scientist at Arizona State University. He is also a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa; Visiting Professor at Hunan Normal University, Guangxi University, and Luoyang Normal University, China; and Guest Professor in the Erasmus Mundus European Master in Tourism Management program based at the University of Girona, Spain. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Heritage Tourism and currently serves on the editorial boards of 25 international journals. He is commissioning or co-commissioning editor over four book series with Routledge and Channel View Publications, and has ongoing research projects in Africa, North America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East on topics related to heritage, international borders and tourism, religious tourism, and community empowerment.