The internet of things for South African tourism

This paper presents examples of internet of things (IoT) applications that could enhance the management of tourism activities in South Africa. Although information and communication technologies (ICT) have been adopted in some aspects of the tourism industry, there is further room to enhance this functionality through the adoption of IoT technologies. The IoT technologies in this research have been categorised under wildlife monitoring and tracking, monitoring seas and waters, monitoring birds, plant species monitoring, tourist information services, hospitality services, tourism marketing and mountaineering and weather monitoring as identified from the South African Department of Tourism website. A literature review was conducted to identify IoT applications in tourism in the international arena that would apply in the South African environment. An architecture of a wildfire detection and alert system using IoT is given as an example. The question that this research answers therefore is, “What IoT technologies can be adopted to impact on South Africa's tourism industry”.