ABSTRACT
Tourism is the world’s largest industry and almost all countries have jumped on the tourism bandwagon. Tourism was promoted due to the positive economic impacts of tourism such as labour-intensive jobs, attracting foreign exchange and promoting the development of small businesses. COVID-19 had a devastating impact on the tourism industry resulting in massive job losses and loss of revenue. The recovery of the tourism industry will happen over several periods and it’s projected to achieve pre-COVID-19 levels in 2022. The adoption of Working from Home (WFH) has potential benefits for the tourism economy, as people achieve certain savings that could be used for tourism consumption. This has led to the development of zoom towns in the case of South Africa on destinations that had already been established as second home destinations. Zoom towns had promoted temporary stay and also permanent residence away from the urban centres to outside the urban fringe. Vaccine tourism has emerged as a form of special interest tourism closely associated with health tourism. The slow vaccination in many African countries was divergent to Zimbabwe where it was faster than most countries. The tourism value chain of Zimbabwe is concentrated in Victoria Falls, and Zimbabwe decided to vaccinate all the residents and staff in this tourism city. At a cost, foreigners were given an opportunity to visit Zimbabwe’s Victoria Fall to vaccinate, and therefore become vaccine tourists. This niche tourism market had rejuvenated tourism demand in Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls area, which is one of the major attractions. The investigation was through a synthesis of literature to fill a gap in the academic gaze on niche tourism markets that could assist tourism recovery in the Global South. The academic gaze unpacks the implications these would have on policy, regulators and public administration in South Africa.
