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African tourism industry employees: expenditure patterns and comparisons with other community members

ABSTRACT Tourism is frequently put forward as a means to promote conservation and development. Numerous studies focus on tourists’ and tourism industry spending, but very few have looked at tourism staff spending. This paper examines spending patterns of 385 tourism staff in six southern African countries. The analysis includes understanding how much staff are spending, what factors impact on their spending and the local economic impacts of this spending in remote, rural areas. A comparison with 1400 respondents who are not working in tourism (non-staff) highlights the potential indirect multiplier effects and where rural households are spending their income. The results show that tourism staff are spending, on average, more than other community members (non-staff) and that a large percentage of their spending is local and has important positive impacts on other households, highlighting the wider importance of tourism employment, beyond simple job creation and the increased potential benefit-sharing from tourism, through staff spending. Promoting the use of local suppliers of goods and services would increase these induced impacts further. Future research should focus on further rounds of tourism staff spending to determine the full development impact.