Geographic Context The city of Cape Town is located in the southwestern corner of the Republic of South Africa.

Nestled between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, many claim that Cape Town has one of the most spectacular physical settings of any city on the planet (James 34; Keeton 27; Xu 123). Fish Hoek is a small fishing village and tourist center located south of Cape Towns Southern Suburbs (Julian 22) where the city meets the Indian Ocean at False Bay (See Figure 1).

Figure 1: The geographic context of the study. Fish Hoek & False Bay in the Republic of South Africa. Cape Town has a number of industries, but tourism plays a major role in the economy, making up 40% of the citys GDP in 2011 (South African Economic Forum 22). In the past decade, one of the fastest growing tourist activities in the city is that of Shark Diving, defined by Extreme Adventures South Africa, a leading adventure tourism company, as swimming with sharks, including Great Whites, in a submersible cage (2012). Controversy has been brewing in recent years, however, as the number of shark attacks by Great Whites has spiked, including one that killed a 80 year old women swimming off of Fish Hoek Beach in 2010 (Cape Argus Newspaper). The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate the extent to which the growth of Shark Diving has impacted the tourism industry in Cape Town. The study is suitable to the DP Geography syllabus as it fits under Optional Theme E: Leisure, Sport, and Tourism specifically the sup-topic about changes in the supply of tourism. It is hypothesized that although Shark Diving has created something of a media frenzy in the city of Cape Town, the economic benefits will outweigh the costs (even if the cost includes the loss of human life), leading to continued growth of the industry.