TOURISM CONSTRAINTS OF UMLAZI TOWNSHIP RESIDENTS ...

When looking at this picture it becomes clear that poverty is one of the majorbarriers in tourism participation among blacks in South Africa. Poor people arepeople who will never be tourists. When these people speak oftravel they meangoing on foot, or in a crowded bus, taxi or train to the next village or town.Possibly, poor people will travel for a wedding or a funeral or religious festival,but their travel will rarely be purely for pleasure. Family incomes are barelysufficient for survival and there is no extra money for luxury travel. Indeed, whenthey think ofluxury their minds cannot stretch ~ar beyond a bottle of soft drink ora better meal (O'Grady, 1981).The concept ofa paid holiday or expenditure on leisure travel is totally outside theconceptual framework ofa poor person. In a hierarchy ofneeds, the need to travelcomes after a long list ofbasic needs like food, shelter, clothing, health and manyother necessities. Amongst the list ofthe basic needs tourism does not feature at all.The observation that was made by Mathews (1994) proves that blacks in SouthAfrica have not been able to participate in tourism because of the financialconstraints. Mathews (1994) states that although tourism data are not compiled byrace, historically the majority of departures, and even a greater preponderance interms of expenditures, have been ofnon-black travellers. Both the domestic andoutbound markets have been overwhelmingly white. Mathews (1994), however,expects a very different outbound profile in the near future because ofthe expectedincrease in the real disposable income ofthe black majority (which numbers somethirty million ofa forty million total population).23"