'Dark tourism': Evaluation of visitors experience after visiting thanatological tourist attractions

Abstract

Although thanatourism is a unique kind of tourism, whose history goes back to ancient times and the middle ages, literature on this touristic demand is still scarce, despite the fact that classification and categorization of thanatological tourist sites has existed for a certain number of years. Considering how the phenomenon of thanatourism, or 'dark tourism' has not been sufficiently explored in Croatia, and there is not enough literature to qualitatively research it, this study represents an attempt to come to a conclusion whether visits to a thanatouristic site contribute to a better undestanding of the broader subject to which the tourist site is related, using qualitative methods. Reviewing published literature on the subject of 'dark tourism' and using the method of semistructured interviews on a sample of ten respondents of Croatian origin, we shall attempt to see whether thantological tourist sites are a part of the cultural and historical heritage, whether a visit to a thanatological tourist site develops a desire to visit another tourist site with similar features, and whether there is a need for a more detailed study on the subject matter which initiated the making of a certain thanatological site. It would also be interesting to view the lucrative side of such sites, i.e. their economic potential. The purpose of this study is to highlight pointers of maintenance and preservation of existing sites or the formation of new ones, mainly on the grounds of former Yugoslavia, as an area of frequent conflicts of various ethnic groups.