Abstract
Leisure tourism is one of the fastest-growing sectors within the tourism industry. It contributes to the development of developing countries by creating jobs, alleviating poverty, and growing the economy of developing countries such as South Africa. However, there has only been research that is based on domestic leisure tourism in South Africa and not leisure tourism undertaken by Zimbabweans living in South Africa. This study aims to profile the leisure tourism of Zimbabweans residing in South Africa and to understand the motivations and challenges that Zimbabweans experience while travelling for leisure within South Africa.
This study adopted a quantitative research design. The primary data was collected from 251 Zimbabweans who reside in South Africa, while the secondary data was extracted from internet sources and academic scholars. Purposive and snowballing sampling techniques were used to select the relevant respondents for this study. The current study reveals that most of the respondents were satisfied with their travels in South Africa, and it displays the travel patterns of the respondents. However, the respondents face issues such as xenophobia and financial difficulties, which make their experiences bad. Further studies need to be conducted so that implementations are designed on how to minimize negative encounters and increase positive experiences for Zimbabweans residing in South Africa for leisure within South Africa.