Development Finance in the Tourism Sector in Zimbabwe and South Africa: Implications, Challenges and Opportunities

The tourism sector provides a lucrative opportunity for countries to absorb the jobless and reduce poverty. The job creation benefit of tourism emanates from its labor-intensive characteristic. It is generally agreed that tourism can spur economic growth especially in developing countries which lack capital capabilities for heavy industrialization. Zimbabwe and South Africa regard the tourism sector as a crucial driver of development towards achieving Africa Development Agenda 2063 (Rasool, Maqbool, & Tarique, 2021; Enilov & Wang, 2022). Unfortunately, these two countries were heavily affected by the Covid 19 pandemic which left the tourism sector worse off. To recover from COVID 19 effects as well as expanding the capabilities of the tourism sector towards national and continental development targets, there is a need to rethink development finance within the tourism sector. Finance is crucial in enhancing development through supporting entrepreneurial endeavors (Matindike & Mago, 2022). Based on a review of documents and reports on development finance for the tourism sectors in South Africa and Zimbabwe from credible databases, it is revealed that considerations to set up tourism financial institutions is a necessity.