In SSA, researchers have focused much on rural-based tourism due to the high concentration of natural resources in the rural spaces in the region. A perusal of top tourism journals, including the Annals of Tourism, Tourism Management, Tourism Management Perspectives, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Geog raphies and Current Issues in Tourism and Tourism Analysis reveals an overem phasis on nature-based tourism in SSA since the years 1990-2020. Journals with a focus on Africa, such as the African Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Lei sure also shows the domination of nature-based tourism. In essence, an overem phasis on rural-based tourism resulted in the neglect of African cities as possible tourism spaces. This is evident as only a handful of books, reports and articles have been published on urban tourism in SSA. African cities have seemingly been thought of as business and political hubs. The UN-Habitat’s ‘State of the world’s cities 2010-2011 – Cities for all: Bridging the urban divide’ pointed out that cities play a signifcant role in reducing poverty, particularly where pro poor policies are well-formulated and implemented (UN-Habitat, 2010). They can also reduce transaction costs such as infrastructure and services, and well knitted hubs that promote social networking. The proximity of cities makes tour ism an important element for urban development. Tourism brings vitality and dynamism to cities; however, it also brings new patterns and changes to their urban landscape. Therefore, the tourism industry has to be innovative so as to provide signifcant revenue and beneft to its residents, whilst reducing urban risks that may affect tourists and the host populace (United Nations World Tour ism Organisation [UNWTO], 2012). It is also important to discuss the challenges that cities in the SSA region may encounter. These may include: issues related to the sustainable and responsible management of he increasing number of tourists arriving in cities; the role of urban tourism in poverty alleviation; managing host-tourist relations; practical steps taken to reduce the impact on the environ ment; and the promotion of benefts related to greener tourism.
In October 2019, Scopus TITLE-ABS-KEY (urban AND tourism) revealed a total of 6223 documents, and TITLE-ABS-KEY (urban AND risk AND tour ism), revealed 350 documents. Not all 350 documents related directly to tour ism; only handful did. A further scan of these documents showed that urban risk tourism-related articles focused on themes such as the nexus between climate change and cities (Pandy & Rogerson, 2019); the linkages between cities, tourism and diseases (Fang et al., 2019); eco-friendly tourism (Zhang & Zhang, 2019), tourism and sustainability (Mata, 2018); and disaster risk reduction and tour ism (Agustan & Kausar; 2019). From papers identifed in the Scopus database, themes dominating the urban tourism discourse in sub-Saharan Africa include economic development (Rogerson, 2016), inclusive tourism, sustainable tourism, pro-poor tourism (Musavengane et al., 2019; Ashley & Roe, 2002), responsible tourism (Musavengane, 2019), green tourism and township (slum) tourism. The increasing population living in slums outlined earlier explains the growing inter est in slum tourism research in the SSA region (Fenzel, 2018; Hoogendoorn & Giddy, 2017; Rogerson & Booyens, 2019), especially in South Africa. However, most of these studies tend to be on the neoliberal trajectory, where the emphasis is placed on economic gains whilst neglecting the relations between urban risk, tourism and resilience.
A perusal of the articles pertaining to the above-mentioned themes shows that there is a greater need for building strong resilience in African urban spaces in light of the urban shocks and stressors involved. What is evident is that rapid and unplanned urbanisation is the leading driver of urban risk. Lew (2014) noted that major disasters and crises have been the areas researchers in resilience tourism have concentrated on. This denotes the narrow application of resilience think ing in tourism (Hall et al., 2018). Studies that have applied resilience thinking in tourism focused more on climate change (Becken, 2013; Prayag, 2018), nat ural resources management (Musavengane, 2019), terrorism, foods and eco nomic instability (Luthe & Wyss, 2014). The resilience of the urban poor heavily depends on the quality of governance systems and institutions (Asian Develop ment Bank, 2013; Siakwah et al., 2020). Regardless of the fragmented pieces of literature on resilience in tourism, there is a need to discuss the types of resilience that matter in urban tourism in light of urban risks associated with African cities. In doing so, this book further adds to the growing body of knowledge on positive tourism in Africa (Filep et al., 2016). Positive tourism is a way of understanding the total and specifc value of tourism to host communities, economies and other elements of the tourism system (Mkono, 2019). There is however an increasing amount of tourism research on Africa being conducted by Western researchers or temporary residents in the West for education purposes (Mkono, 2019). The fact that different tourism scholars originate mainly from Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand has led to the general perception that tour ism research is Eurocentric (Dangi & Jamal, 2016). Thus, this book highlights the voices of African scholars contributing to African discourse and knowledge on urban risk, tourism and resilience.