Page 7 - Professorial Lecture - Professor Mapaure
P. 7
Table 1: World Ranking of selected southern African countries and their percentage
share in tourism (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015)
WORLD RANK COUNTRY % SHARE IN 2014
37 Madagascar 19.7
51 Namibia 14.9
55 Tanzania 14.0
73 Kenya 10.5
76 Zimbabwe 10.4
World 9.8
92 South Africa 9.4
108 Botswana 8.5
Africa 8.1
121 Malawi 7.3
140 Zambia 6.1
172 Angola 3.6
The largest biome type in southern Africa is the savanna. It is a biome characterised
by coexistence of, and interaction between woody plants and grasses. This type of
biome is mainly in found in Africa, Australia and South America. They cover about
12% of the world, 50% of the African continent, and 75% of southern Africa
(Cowling et al., 2004). The uniqueness of savanna ecosystems makes them very
important for tourism since they support a wide diversity of animal species valuable
for both consumptive and non-consumptive tourism. These include elephants,
buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, kudu, hippos, rhinos, impalas, springbok, oryx, etc. The
popular ‘Big Five’ (elephant, leopard, buffalo, lion, rhino) contribute significantly to
tourism in the southern African region.
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