Received: 2026-03-11  |  Accepted: 2026-09-14  |  Published: 2026-09-30

Title

Tourism opportunities created by COVID-19 pandemic in Vhembe District Municipality, Limpopo Province, South Africa


Abstract

Like all other forms of pervasive disruption, COVID-19 disrupted the world's economic and social systems, while creating opportunities for some and devastating threats for others. The South African economy, through the tourism sector, was highly affected. This paper, therefore, investigated the opportunities created by the COVID-19 pandemic in the tourism sector, with a focus on South Africa's Limpopo Province, specifically the Vhembe District Municipality. The study employed quantitative methods supported by a descriptive research design. For this study, a survey questionnaire was distributed to forty-two (42) tourism business owners in four (4) local towns in the Vhembe District, and convenience sampling was utilised to choose participants for the study. The quantitative data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). A deductive analysis method was used to analyse data generated by SPSS from tables and figures.


Keywords

Business Forums, COVID-19, local economic development, opportunities, Tourism sector


JEL classifications

Z32 , R11


URI

http://jssidoi.org/ird/article/286


DOI


Pages

318-329


Funding


This is an open access issue and all published articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Authors

Sekole, Makhupu Queen
University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa https://www.unisa.ac.za
Articles by this author in: CrossRef |  Google Scholar

Sebola, Mokoko Piet
University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa https://www.unisa.ac.za
Articles by this author in: CrossRef |  Google Scholar

Journal title

Insights into Regional Development

Volume

8


Number

3


Issue date

September 2026


Issue DOI


ISSN

ISSN 2345-0282 (online)


Publisher

VšĮ Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, Vilnius, Lithuania

Cited

Google Scholar

Article views & downloads

HTML views: 147  |  PDF downloads: 98

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