Celebrating Tourism Month and the start of Spring, the Tshwane University of Technology鈥檚 Faculty of Management Sciences, hosted a Dean鈥檚 seminar at the Pretoria Campus, featuring world-renowned Prof Clifford Lewis, who delivered a paper titled 鈥�Tourism and minoritised groups: towards a stigma informed lens of tourism development鈥�.
Prof Clifford Lewis addressing the audience during the Deans' Seminar. He is an Associate Professor of Marketing, School of Business at Charles Sturt University in Australia and his research centers on inclusion, belonging and how marginilised groups experience community and place.
Opening the event, Prof Uwe Hermann, the programme director and Section Head for Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies at Tourism Management, said Tourism Month is an appropriate time for tourism practitioners and researchers to reflect on the successes, importance and challenges of the industry as well as seek opportunities and answers to those challenges.
Prof Uwe Hermann, the programme director and Section Head for Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies at Tourism Management
Prof Lewis said, while tourism is a growing industry that contributes about 10% of the global economy and creates about 367 million jobs globally, it is not all inclusive, especially to people living with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ community and indigenous people.
According to him, researchers and practitioners have a responsibility to ensure that tourism is accessible to everyone and benefits all equally. 鈥淢inorities make a significant contribution to the sector, therefore we must challenge tourism systems and regulations to become more inclusive,鈥� he said.
鈥淭ourism under neo-liberalism offers empowerment, but often only at the price of commodification. Our challenge is to imagine a form of tourism that values disabled people, LGBTQ+ and the indigenous identities as markets,鈥� he concluded.