Abstract
As an alternative to its closest counterpart of global tourism sales, the role of domestic
tourism receipts (DTR) generated for poverty mitigation has not received much needed
attention within South Africa; especially in research and policymaking. With the inception of
the Domestic Tourism Survey in 2008 and a diverse tourism economy, this makes South
Africa a case in point. Hence, this current research aims to evaluate the impact of DTR
generated within South African provinces and how such inflows aid with impoverishment
mitigation. This will be achieved by gathering secondary data from both Quantec and
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). The deployment of these datasets will enable the
approximation of estimates produced by the Fixed Effects and Random Effects econometric
models due to a panel-data evaluation of all nine provinces within South Africa. With the
consideration of heterogeneity, the empirical outcomes yield contrasting results when
regressing DTR against poverty. Hence, when regressed at a national level, DTR do
mitigate impoverishment; however, the results from eight selected South African provinces
prove otherwise. From such an outcome, it is DTR generated within the Eastern Cape area
that possesses the highest coefficient which stimulates impoverishment amongst the
nation’s provinces; such is prevalent despite the province generating roughly R73.1 billion
from local touring undertakings in the period 2008-2020 according to DTS (2008-2020)
reports. In a quest to attain poverty mitigation, such an outcome calls for the improved
allocation of local travelling receipts within South African provinces. By inducing further
control variables per province (i.e., per capita incomes, the consumer price index,
discouraged jobseekers, the education share, and a COVID-19 shock dummy), this current
research covers the years 2008-2020. With the assistance of the latest gazetted Tourism
White Paper (2024), this research outlines core intersection improvement areas from both
the national and provincial dimensions as policy suggestions; whilst proposing aspects
which may stimulate future research approaches. This will be supplemented with the latest
DTS (2023) when analysing sectors which may yield the highest return on investment based
on the highest provincial DTR realised via local travelling activities.