The Southern African Pleasure Periphery, 1966-83¶
Jonathan Crush; Paul Wellings (1983). The Southern African Pleasure Periphery, 1966-83. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 21(4). Cambridge University Press.
| Type | journal article |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | mixed |
| Period studied | 1945–1983 |
| Regions | Lesotho, Swaziland, Bophuthatswana, Transkei, Ciskei, Venda, KwaNdebele, South Africa |
| Themes | bantustans removals influx, business and state, comparative theory, politics ideology elections, macro fiscal finance debt |
| Citation key | crush1983 |
Argument¶
Tourism in Lesotho and Swaziland after independence was built on South African demand for 'forbidden fruit' (gambling, pornography, interracial sex) banned under apartheid, and was dominated by South African hotel and casino capital. The authors argue that its growth in the 1970s and its decline after the mid-1970s are explained by the regional political economy, not by local planning or by general Third World tourism trends. The restructured Homelands policy and the competition between South African and international tourism capital shifted casino investment into the Bantustans, where Pretoria offered backing and tighter political and labour control. This pre-empted the main attractions of Lesotho and Swaziland and left their governments with little control over the industry. The argument rests on tourist statistics, hotel capacity data, Pretoria's transfers to the Homelands and corporate developments, with a critique of official projections.
Evidence and method¶
Official tourism and hotel statistics for Lesotho and Swaziland, national development plans, consultancy reports (Stevenson and Kellogg, Sores Inc., Steigenberger), South African Bureau of Economic Research and Development data on Homeland finance, press reports (Sunday Times, Times of Swaziland, The Star), marketing brochures, a study of prostitution in Lesotho, a letter from a hotel worker, and secondary literature on Bantustans and dependency.
Place in the debates¶
- Function of the Bantustans for capital accumulation (labour reservoirs, social control, class polarisation, 'fraud' versus restructured role) (see Homelands, separate development, decentralisation and removals). Rejects dismissal of 'independence' as mere fraud and adopts the radical/Marxist view (Legassick-Wolpe, Innes-O'Meara, Molteno) that the Homelands are redefined for accumulation and control; adds tourism capital as an overlooked element in Pretoria's strategy.
- Tourism as a development strategy in the Third World (de Kadt, Turner and Ash, Britton). Sceptical: argues that the pleasure-periphery and dependency framework fits better than generic tourism-and-development debates, and that planners cannot determine the outcome.
- Dependence and regional integration of Lesotho/Swaziland on South Africa. Treats tourism as a further channel of South African domination, reinforcing customs and monetary union ties and profit repatriation.
Findings¶
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Casino-based tourism was established under colonial connivance and then continued by the post-colonial states, with South African monopoly operators. (p. 6)
The first casino in the region - the Royal Swazi Spa - opened in I965, three years before Swaziland's independence
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The tourist industry was overwhelmingly dependent on South African visitors, mostly from the Witwatersrand. (p. 8)
In Lesotho, the proportion of tourists orginating in South Africa appears to have remained above 85 per cent for the whole of the I970S, reaching 90-5 per cent in 1979.
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Visits were mostly short weekend trips, so average stays were short and expenditure low, and official projections were badly wrong. (p. 9)
In Lesotho, the average length-of-stay actually fell from 2'4 nights in 1972 to I*9 in I980, in the face of a plan calculation that it would also reach 3-7.
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The core attraction was forbidden fruit banned in South Africa; the industry also depended on and reinforced racist stereotypes and ties to South Africa. (p. 12-13)
Hence the tourist industry in Lesotho and Swaziland emerged as a supplier of forbidden fruit abrogated in South
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Economic benefits to the host countries were small because of high import content, foreign ownership and profit repatriation under the Rand Monetary Area. (p. 18)
In I973 it was reliably estimated that only 42 8 per cent of the earnings from tourism was accrued locally with- in Swaziland as wages, as state revenue through taxation, and as local supplies.
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Tourism's contribution to GNP and formal employment was modest even at its peak. (p. 17)
In 1976, at the peak of the tourist boom, the industry brought E 4-6 million into Swaziland, a mere 2-2 per cent of G.N.P.
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Pretoria's financial transfers to the Homelands escalated sharply, creating an incentive to enlist tourism capital to share costs. (p. 20)
the costs of financing this programme have escalated rapidly from R 420'8 million in grants and loans in I977-8, to R I,048-2 million by 1981-2.
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Casino capital shifted to the Homelands, backed by Pretoria, where competition between Southern Sun and Holiday Inns intensified. (p. 22)
With active encouragement from the South African state, this Group built two major complexes in Bophuthatswana - Mmabatho Sun and Sun City - at a cost of R9o million.
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Homelands offered investors tighter political and labour controls and easier appropriation of profits than Lesotho or Swaziland. (p. 23)
The Homelands are subject to much tighter political controls by South Africa, and are both more pliant as regards investment conditions and more repressive as regards labour controls
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Day-visitor traffic to the Homeland casinos grew as visits to Lesotho and Swaziland fell. (p. 24)
In I980 there were 400,000 and in I98 I I-5 million visitors to Bophuthatswana
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In 1983 the industry was consolidated into a single South African-based company, ending casino competition and weakening Homeland bargaining power. (p. 26)
Thus, the network of existing casino-hotels in Southern Africa (with the exception of the Maseru Hilton) came under the control of a single South African-based company.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lesotho Bureau of Statistics, Hotel-Tourism Statistics, 1979-80 | official statistical series | 1967-1981 | Supplies actual annual tourist arrivals to Lesotho plotted in Figure 1 and occupancy/bed-night data. |
| Swaziland Government, Annual Statistical Bulletins, 1970-80 | official statistical series | 1970-1980 | Provides actual tourist arrivals and the official estimate for Swaziland in Figure 1. |
| Associated Research Consultants, Development Plan for Tourism for Lesotho (Nairobi, 1974) | commission or official report | 1974 | Source of the 1974 projected tourist numbers and the length-of-stay projection (3.7 nights) that actuals are contrasted with. |
| Stevenson and Kellogg, Tourism in Swaziland, Vol. 2, Economic Analysis (Toronto, 1973) | commission or official report | 1973 | Supplies the optimistic and conservative 1973 tourist projections in Figure 1. |
| Stevenson and Kellogg, Tourism in Swaziland, Vol. 1, Project Report (Toronto, 1973) | commission or official report | 1973 | Supplies the estimate that only 42.8 per cent of tourism earnings accrued locally (leakage of almost 60 per cent). |
| Government of Swaziland, Second National Development Plan, 1973 to 1977 | commission or official report | 1973-1977 | Source of the official estimate of 3.7 nights average length of stay, contrasted with the actual 2.8 nights. |
| Government of Swaziland, Third National Development Plan, 1978-9 to 1982-3; Government of Lesotho, Third National Development Plan, 1980-1 to 1985-6 | commission or official report | 1978-1986 | Evidence of official planning assumptions favouring tourism expansion, state investment figures (E8m Swaziland), and government acknowledgement of tourism's negative effects. |
| Sores Inc., Tourist Market Diversification Survey: Kingdom of Swaziland (Montreal, 1980) | commission or official report | 1980 | Cited as an example of over-optimistic projections (200,000 tourists by mid-1980s) and on persistent market dominance of South Africa. |
| Steigenberger Consulting, Tourism Marketing Study for Qeme Plateau, Sehlabathebe National Park, Oxbow (Frankfurt/Zurich, 1981) | commission or official report | 1981 | Consultancy estimate that tourism 'leakage' in Lesotho is 60-70 per cent. |
| Tourism statistics tables on origin, bed-night capacity, occupancy, and trip purpose for Lesotho and Swaziland, 1972-80 (underlying series not named) | official statistical series | 1972-1980 | Underpins Tables 1-3 on South African source regions, spatial concentration of bed-nights, and occupancy rates, plus business vs holiday shares. |
| Bureau of Economic Research and Development, Statistical Survey of Black Development, Parts I and II (Pretoria, 1981-2), Tables 66 and 103 | official statistical series | 1977-8 to 1981-2 | Source for Table 4 on grants, loans and internal revenue financing of the Homelands. |
| International Labour Office, Options for a Dependent Economy: development, employment and equity problems in Lesotho (Addis Ababa, 1979) | commission or official report | 1978 | Supports household income (81% under M600) to argue gambling expenditure comes at the expense of basic needs. |
| Casino Act, Swaziland 1963; Swaziland 1977 anti-soliciting legislation | legislation gazette | 1963; 1977 | Casino Act shows colonial groundwork for casino monopolies; 1977 law shows selective enforcement against prostitution. |
| Times of Swaziland (Mbabane), 12 January, 1 February, 30 March 1978; 27 January 1982 | newspapers periodicals | 1978; 1982 | Reports on prostitution arrests and a hotel worker's letter on wages used to illustrate social costs and low pay. |
| Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 23 January 1983; 19 December 1982; 17 April 1983; 13 September 1981; The Star (Johannesburg), 2 July 1980 | newspapers periodicals | 1980-1983 | Evidence on Lesotho minister's remarks, possible casino-company merger, Venda casino bail-out, Thaba Nchu opposition. |
| Holiday Inns promotion brochure 'Swazi Spa's Holiday Valley'; Lesotho National Tourist Office brochure 'Lesotho's Magic Mountain Kingdom' | company records or reports | n.d. (c. 1970s-80s) | Marketing texts quoted to show how 'forbidden fruit' and the 'noble savage' image were promoted. |
| M. Mphuthing, 'Prostitution in Lesotho', National University of Lesotho, Roma, 1980 | author survey or fieldwork | 1980 | Study of 40 prostitutes used to describe social conditions of vice associated with tourism. |
| Personal communication, Tommy Kai, May 1982 | interviews oral history | May 1982 | Source of estimate that 75 per cent of slot-machine clientele at Maseru Holiday Inn Casino are Basotho. |
| Wellings and Crush, 'Tourism and Dependency in Southern Africa' (Applied Geography, 1983) – author's own earlier study of Lesotho tourism and hotel industry corporate structure | secondary literature compilation | to 1983 | Relied upon for spatial/temporal tourist patterns, corporate structure of the hotel industry and the casino map (Figure 4). |
| Corporate and casino figures for Holiday Inns/Rennies and Southern Sun (rooms, gambling turnover, investment costs), 1980-83 (source not specified) | company records or reports | 1980-1983 | Quantifies the competition between hotel groups and shift of casino investment to the Homelands. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Descriptive tables.
Descriptive historical-geographic analysis combining time series of tourist arrivals, occupancy and origin tables, comparison of projections against actuals, and consultancy leakage estimates with a political-economy interpretation (regional dependence, Homelands policy, corporate competition); causal claims rest on narrative argument and timing coincidence.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Tourist arrivals to Lesotho and Swaziland expanded dramatically after independence, peaked in 1975 (Swaziland) and 1977 (Lesotho), then declined, with occupancy rates falling sharply. (p. 677) | Government tourism statistics (Lesotho Bureau of Statistics, Swaziland Annual Statistical Bulletins) plotted in Figure 1 and Table 3. | Systematic data |
| The tourist markets of both countries are overwhelmingly South African, concentrated on the Witwatersrand, with short weekend stays, and official projections of length of stay and arrivals were wildly inaccurate. (p. 679) | Table 1 on origin; official statistics on length of stay compared with development plan and consultancy projections. | Systematic data |
| Tourism delivered limited economic benefits to host countries because of high import content, foreign ownership and profit repatriation, with leakage of roughly 60 per cent in Swaziland and 60-70 per cent in Lesotho. (p. 689) | Stevenson and Kellogg 1973 and Steigenberger consultancy estimates, plus share of GNP and employment figures. | Partial data |
| The industry's attractions were 'forbidden fruit' (gambling, pornography, interracial sex) banned in South Africa, producing social costs including prostitution and gambling losses among poor locals. (p. 685) | Marketing brochures, Times of Swaziland reports, Mphuthing's study of 40 prostitutes, ILO household income data and a personal communication. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Homeland independence and Pretoria's support for casino capital (especially Southern Sun) redirected tourism investment and visitors to the Homelands, which is the major cause of the decline in Lesotho and Swaziland. (p. 695) | Table 4 on transfers to Homelands, casino room counts and turnover figures, visitor numbers to Bophuthatswana and Transkei, newspaper reports; timing correlation with the post-1975 decline. | Partial data |
| Pretoria entered an 'alliance of convenience' with hotel capital to shift Homeland financing costs to the private sector, with transfers rising from R420.8m in 1977-8 to R1,048.2m in 1981-2. (p. 691) | Table 4 compiled from the Bureau of Economic Research and Development survey; interpretation of the state-capital alliance is asserted. | Partial data |
| British colonial authorities and then the post-colonial states actively facilitated South African casino monopolies, establishing the forbidden-fruit model from the 1960s. (p. 677) | Casino Act of 1963, dates of casino openings and Commonwealth Development Corporation loan; no archival documents cited. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
The author's caveats¶
The authors note that official projections failed to achieve accuracy, making them hesitant to speculate on the 1980s. They acknowledge that not all tourists pursue forbidden fruit and that business visits are separated out in the data. Mid-1960s tourist numbers are only 'estimated', and the 1983 corporate reorganisation is described as recent and fast-moving.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The causal claim that Homeland casinos displaced Lesotho and Swaziland rests on timing and corporate narrative, not on visitor-level or origin-destination data showing diversion of the same South African market. Casino revenue, profit repatriation and company accounts (Holiday Inns, Southern Sun) and archival records of Pretoria-company dealings would test the 'alliance' thesis; some company and state files existed then and may be accessible in archives now. Alternative explanations (fuel prices, exchange rates, unrest, changing tastes) are not systematically tested, and the social-cost claims rely on a small prostitute study and newspaper anecdotes rather than surveys.
Replicability: Data described but not public.