Black Travel (Im-) Mobilities in South Africa: A Case of Historical Urban Tourism Restraint

The politicization of urban tourism associated with overtourism and the growth of anti-tourism movements are leading issues in contemporary international scholarship on cities as tourism destinations. Policy-makers are challenged either to introduce limits to the numbers of visitors travelling to certain tourism destinations or for enacting interventions to block particular types of tourism. This article contributes an historical perspective to debates around the mitigation and containment of urban tourism. The focus is on South Africa where a battery of policies to restrain the mobilities of Black South African were enacted and only dismantled with the demise of apartheid. The impetus for restraint emerged from longstanding policies of racial segregation which sought to limit severely the travel mobilities of Black South Africans into the country’s major cities. Policy implementation involved the regime of ‘pass laws’, requirements for visitor permits, and the creation of only a minimal infrastructure to support (Black) travellers with racial restrictions imposed on the provision of accommodation services.