Tourism resilience and recovery in the face of disruptive global events: an international comparison

This study explores tourism recovery and resilience in South Africa following COVID-19 amid geopolitical instability and disruptions to global travel. Using a comparative design, it analyses secondary data from government documents, OECD and UNWTO reports, academic literature, and industry sources across South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Portugal. Four dimensions of resilience are examined: policy response, digital transformation, public-private partnerships, and market diversification. Findings reveal distinct resilience pathways, with Portugal displaying transformative resilience through coherent policies and innovation; Zimbabwe exhibits constrained adaptive resilience due to macroeconomic instability and weak institutional capacity; while South Africa shows systemic yet uneven resilience, supported by a domestic tourism base constrained by structural inequalities and limited digital inclusion. It is argued that South Africa requires