Tradition, Modernity and Tourism in Swaziland
David Harrison's 1992 chapter examined the social effects of tourism in Swaziland, especially the relationship between tradition, monarchy and modernization. Tradition supported established political authority while also providing cultural imagery used to attract visitors.International visitor arrivals rose from 89,015 in 1972 to 257,997 in 1989. In 1988, tourism accounted for about 3% of GDP and more than 4% of total exports. These figures establish the historical economic setting of the chapter.
What the study did and found
Harrison examined how tourism development interacted with political authority and social change. The central tension was tradition's dual role: it helped legitimate the monarchy while becoming a marketable attraction within a modern tourism industry.
Visitor numbers increased unevenly from 89,015 in 1972 to 257,997 in 1989. Most visitors travelled by road from South Africa and generally stayed no longer than two or three days. Some journeys were associated with television programmes and sporting activities restricted in South Africa during the apartheid era.
Harrison also examined modernization as a challenge to established authority, particularly in relations involving younger people and women. Tourism could reinforce the public visibility of tradition while simultaneously connecting cultural practices with commercial activity.
Why it is cited
The chapter links tourism to political legitimacy, cultural representation and social relationships rather than treating visitor growth as an exclusively economic development. It shows how the same cultural traditions can support established institutions and serve as products promoted to visitors.
Short visits from South Africa and tourism growth were closely tied to the regional political and economic conditions of the late twentieth century.
The visitor totals and 1988 economic shares document a particular historical period; they are not measures of tourism in present-day Eswatini. Harrison's discussion of monarchy, gender and generational change is a sociological interpretation of the circumstances he studied. Visitor growth alone cannot establish how tourism's benefits were distributed or how different communities experienced cultural change. Commercial tourism, cultural representation and political authority were closely connected in the historical setting Harrison examined. |
The topic today
Swaziland officially adopted the name Eswatini in 2018. The country was known as Swaziland throughout the period of tourism development examined in 1992.
The interaction of tourism, cultural identity and political institutions remains an important research question. Harrison's analysis offers a historical comparison point, without implying that the social or economic conditions of the early 1990s continue unchanged today.