Dark tourism: Research on traveling to the sites of tragedies

This research aims to determine the behavioral intention of residents to engage in recreational and leisure activities typical of dark tourism, which will enable tourism stakeholders to establish more effective measures and strategies to promote and develop dark tourism worldwide. First, a literature review of the scientific research on dark tourism follows, based on the papers in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Second, this empirical study uses structural equation models (SEMs) and, more concretely, partial least square (PLS) to validate the proposed model, which evaluates residents’ perceptions and motivations towards performing leisure activities linked to dark tourism. The results show that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control have a significant relationship with the intention to visit a dark tourism destination, with attitudes explaining 45.66% of residents’ intention towards this type of tourism. In terms of practical implications, the findings of this study highlight that community participation is a critical factor in the relationship between dark tourism and residents. In terms of practical implications, the findings of this study highlight that community participation is a critical factor in the relationship between dark tourism and residents because of its role in shaping the constructs that determine an individual’s behavioral intentions. Finally, it is imperative to involve local communities in tourism planning and the decision-making processes to develop a more sustainable approach to tourism that respects local sentiments and cultural contexts.

PurposeThis paper aims to extend understanding on how the tourist experience at dark heritage sites is directed and consequently influences the narratives of cultural heritage. By discussing the way dark heritage sites are projected by suppliers, the paper anticipates to advance knowledge on the nexus between dark tourism and heritage and to offer insights into the management of dissonant heritage sites.Design/methodology/approachThe cases of two opposing national museums in the divided island of Cyprus are presented and discussed in an attempt to illustrate how dissonant heritage interpretation in a post-conflict context is often the product of political direction, commemorating the past and to a great extent influencing the future of a society.FindingsNational struggle museums represent dark heritage sites, which evoke emotions pertinent to ethnic identity reinforcement. Evidently, the management of such sites is in opposition to peace-building efforts taking place in a post-conflict context. The paper concludes that visitation to dark heritage sites is culturally driven rather than death-related and suggests that efforts consolidate to target specific segments of visitors, if the reconciliation potential of dark tourism is to be unleashed.Originality/valueInsofar, minimal attention has been paid on the conditions of the supply of dark heritage sites and the role of suppliers in influencing culture-based issues including collective memory and national identity. This paper addresses this gap in literature and advances understanding on the developmental elements defining dark heritage tourism, by identifying and discussing trajectories between dark tourism and politics.

Dark tourism is a youngest subset of tourism, introduced only in 1990s. It is a multifaceted and diverse phenomenon. Dark tourism studies carried out in the Western countries succinctly portrays dark tourism as a study of history and heritage, tourism and tragedies. Dark tourism has been identified as niche or special interest tourism. This paper highlights how dark tourism has been theoretically conceptualized in previous studies. As an umbrella concept dark tourism includes than tourism, blackspot tourism, morbid tourism, disaster tourism, conflict tourism, dissonant heritage tourism and others. This paper examines how dark tourism as a distinct form of tourism came into existence in the tourism academia and how it could be understood as a separate subset of tourism in better way. Basically, this study focuses on deathscapes, repressed sadism, commercialization of grief, commoditization of death, dartainment, blackpackers, darsumers and deathseekers capitalism. This study generates curiosity among the readers and researchers to understand and explore the concepts and values of dark tourism in a better way.

Lying at the heart of Tonbridge and Ashworth's 'dissonant heritage' are issues of disinheritance and the subsequent discord that this can cause. Implicit in this is the lesson for heritage professionals to make sure that the heritage they manage is presented in an honest, ethical and inclusive manner that minimises dissonance. But what, precisely, does this mean in practice? What if those who 'own' the heritage are not professionals, but deeply committed and interested amateur volunteer enthusiasts who have made it their life's work over decades to conserve and look after the heritage, but who are not particularly interested in, or actively resistant to, issues that so concern professionals? These are some of the issues which periodically arise in the British Channel Islands over the most visible heritage of Occupation — the German fortifications, or 'bunkers'.

ABSTRACTIssues arise when trying to understand the motivation of policymakers to preserve the assets of cultures that do not belong to the mainstream population. Tunbridge and Ashworth's seminal study on ‘Dissonant Heritage’ and Bennett's developmental model of intercultural sensitivity (DMIS model) provide a basis to evaluate both the motivations and the existence of a cultural dissonance. As there is a growing worldwide trend towards preserving and developing Jewish heritage tourism (JHT) this study examines Jewish heritage sites in three Macedonian cities endowed with rich Jewish history. Unlike previous studies concentrating on the notion of dissonant heritage, this research focuses on the motivation for preserving such sites, an issue hardly tackled before. Previous studies suggested the prevalence of six possible motives: guilt, facing harsh history, emphasis on dark tourism, revival of a harmonious past, respect, and economic benefits. Data were obtained via face-to-face interviews conducted with policy-makers from central and local governments. The interviews were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively in order to determine the leading motives for preservation. The findings indicate that by establishing and maintaining Jewish Heritage sites, stakeholders reflect sentiments of respect and admiration for the perished Jewish community and a longing for the revival of an elusive harmonious past. The potential economic benefits and dark tourism surfaced only as minor motives. Practically, JH preservation is used to revive dialogue with a forgotten past that may also contribute to urban tourism development in the future. Conceptually, the interviews did not reveal any indication of heritage dissonance, a finding that stands in sharp contrast to the dissonant heritage theory.

The aim of this article is to reveal the connection and significance of the concepts of dark tourism and sustainable tourism for the sustainable development of tourism, especially for regional tourism growth. The article discusses the theoretical aspects of dark tourism and details the aspects of this tourism industry as part of cultural tourism. The article also analyses principles and models of sustainable tourism development, with a stronger focus on the integrated development paradigm. As a relatively significant part of the research and analysis of sustainable tourism is more focused on the challenges posed by global mass tourism, this article focuses on the issues of sustainable development of niche tourism in relation to regional tourism. The article presents the analysis of Lithuanian dark tourism resources, presents the most common dark (dissonant) heritage objects, as well as the evaluation of resources according to the spectrum of dark tourism and the comparative analysis of the country’s most popular dark tourism objects from the point of view of sustainable tourism. A qualitative study revealed that regional tourism in Lithuania (especially niche, such as dark tourism) lacks integrity among different stakeholders, especially in involving the local community in the processes of cultural heritage protection and cultural tourism development and in developing more intensive links with the private sector. On the other hand, the analysis also revealed that there is an ambiguous public opinion regarding the dark heritage, which does not contribute to the sustainable development of tourism and the actualization of such heritage. The article also discusses the models of sustainable development of dark tourism and invites to discuss how to encourage greater public involvement in the development of dark tourism as part of cultural tourism, so that the principle of sustainable tourism does not remain an empty declaration.

The topic of dark tourism emerged in the last three decades as tourism became more accessible. It allows forgotten history to be revised and transferred to the public. This study aims to restructure existing categorization regarding dark tourism and address the research gaps in dark tourism studies. We collected studies from international publication databases – Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. We pre-processed the following data for each study: topic, authors’ location of university affiliation, study area, year of publication, top-cited articles, top productive journals in publishing dark tourism studies, keywords, and internality/externality of the author from the study area. With the current paper, we analysed review articles published from 1996 to 2024 (first quarter), applying qualitative methods. Based on these, a new analytical framework was generated. Furthermore, the connections between research topics were also analysed. The results of the analysis highlight specific research gaps in the literature on dark tourism and address poorly visible research fields in international journals, e.g. terrorism-related research, social media links of dark tourism, postcolonial contexts, or commemoration of communist past and heritage. Consequently, certain countries and regions are underrepresented in the literature. This critical review offers new research areas but also gives some directions to the theoretical enrichment of the dark tourism concept.

The article aims to show the dissonant heritage of Opole from the perspective of tourist guides. Its first section shows the dissonant heritage in relation to tourism, especially cultural tourism, heritage tourism and dark tourism. The role of the tourist guide in constructing narratives about difficult heritage is then considered. Empirically, the article endeavours to identify the elements of Opole’s dissonant heritage discerned by tourist guides, and the ways of telling tourists about them. Ten qualitative interviews were conducted with Opole guides. Analysis of the narratives reveals that the dissonant heritage of Opole is perceived by the guides from several perspectives. This primarily means their own, entangled in the social characteristics of the guide (e.g. national identity), in the context of the specificity of the group that the guide is showing round, and in the context of their reactions to the guide’s stories or sites visited.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the evolving themes in dark tourism research. The increase in death-related incidents in the last few years has increased the consumption of dark tourism, igniting a resurgence of dark tourism literature. This study retrieves 363 articles published in Scopus-indexed journals from 1996 to 2021, using the SPAR-4 SLR technique to identify the themes using Sci2 and Gephi software. Keyword co-occurrence network, Bibliographic coupling network, and Collaboration networks were used to identify the knowledge clusters in dark tourism literature. The study reveals that existing studies have largely focused on the scope of dark tourism, destination identification and management, marketing aspects, motives, experiences, and engagement, and mitigating moral and ethical dilemmas. As the themes have remained consistent since the past studies, the study concludes that the research on DT has become stagnated, and there is a need for a novel approach. For that, it recommends that the scope of dark tourism should be enhanced beyond heritage tourism and promoted as a tool for global peace. Further, several gaps in marketing and visit and emotional engagement aspects are identified that could become the research agendas in future studies.

This paper aims to identify the co-authors of dark tourism, influential articles and journals, hot topics, research deficiencies and future research directions. Based on the literature records from 2002 to 2022 in the core database of Web of Science, a comprehensive review of dark tourism research is conducted. The results show that the number of publications on dark tourism is on the rise. The United Kingdom, the United States, China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), Australia and the Netherlands are the major contributors to the study of dark tourism. Hot research topics mainly include: the motivation of tourists to participate in dark tourism, the experience of tourists to participate in dark tourism, the influence of dark tourism and the management of dark tourism destinations. Future studies can pay more attention to the basic theories of dark tourism and its positive effects, and focus more on the psychology and behavior of special dark tourism groups.

Summary This article introduces a collection of eight revised papers that focus on the connection between slavery and tourism. After tracing the history of the former from its origins to the present day, and after providing some examples of related attractions, it confronts a number of dilemmas associated with their juxtaposition. A brief overview of the contributions to the volume is supplied, along with some epistemological and methodological concerns that they raise. Slavery tourism is finally contextualized within a framework of thanatourism, dark tourism and dissonant heritage, a field which in turn poses several questions for further research into this new and exciting phenomenon.

During the thirty-year period (1968–1998) known as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, 3500 people died and thousands more suffered physical disabilities and psychological trauma. Belfast, among other conflict cities, helped inspire the term ‘dark tourism’ in 1989. The country continues to be in conflict but is officially in a period of peace. Northern Ireland has been the theme for much peace and reconciliation research, but literature to date concentrates on polarised discourses rather than rural representation. Toward meeting and expanding the UN SDG16 peace goals, this research explores how what we term emotive peace tourism can be used as a methodology to affect emotional reconciliation registers in a unique rural Northern Ireland visitor experience. Bringing domestic tourists from Catholic and Protestant communities into face-to-face contact through a liminal participative ‘out-of-place’ visitor experience, we choreographed and performed a series of “Troubles” events: a guided night walk through a checkpoint, an IRA Wake, a UDA Funeral, and a Mixed-Marriage. Contributing to the debate as to whether tourism is more of a ‘peacekeeper’ than a ‘peacemaker’, our research demonstrates that an in situ liminal, emotive peace tourism experience, can generate sustainable tolerance, respect, trust, sympathy, and empathy towards others in post-conflict Northern Ireland and likely elsewhere.

This paper aims at developing a bibliometric analysis of previous studies focused on dark tourism and thanatourism in order to map the structure and development of scientific production in this field. Moreover, this paper intends to identify which are the main research topics that require further investigation, contributing to shape a future research agenda. This research follows a mixed-method based on both qualitative and quantitative analyses, which is also supported by a systematic review process. The results show a particular growth in the interest in dark tourism since 2008. It has moved from a neglected research area to a relevant topic in the tourism literature. Besides, a lack of consensus can be observed on different aspects such as definition, scope, or motivation nature, essentially, due to its multidisciplinary nature. This has favoured a relatively disperse body of literature. This research contributes to bringing clarity to the field of dark tourism and thanatourism by providing an overview of its evolution and current status. Moreover, this study provides a comprehensive and organized summary of the diverse approaches, perspectives, and research trends. In doing so, this research enriches the lively debate on dark tourism, offering a greater understanding of what death, and related concepts, mean and imply to the present and future of tourism.

Romania’s current touristic image is struggling to maintain itself above a floating point. This situation is due to the fact that the country’s brand has been very poorly designed, not being able to underline the true value of its cultural heritage, thus making it hardly distinguishable among other destinations. To do just this, we have decided that the best way is to first come up with a set of proper regional brands and from there on work our way up to creating a national brand that would be based on a solid regional structure. We think that Transylvania is the perfect place to start Romania’s rebranding process, firstly because it lies closest to the western part of Europe making it more accessible; and secondly because it already is very popular among foreign tourists and by probing deeper into the market we shall be able to maximize its touristic potential. Our plan is to implement a new form of tourism, for Romania, which has proven to be very popular in Western Europe and should guarantee a great success for Transylvania too. The type of tourism that we are referring to is dark tourism. Transylvania contains a great deal of historical sites that are renowned for the gruesome punishments or bloody executions that have take place in the country’s past, thus making it an excellent candidate for this type of tourism. Dark tourism represents the perfect choice for creating a solid, mature touristic brand because it is able to correctly promote and conserve the country’s true historical origins by laying on the table concrete places and facts regarding our past, while at the same time being able to keep up with current trends that are evolving in the global scene of tourism. So, through dark tourism Transylvania shall become a more attractive touristic destination. www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line) WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Vol 139, © 2010 WIT Press Sustainable Tourism IV 581 doi:10.2495/ST100 1 50

This chapter offers a critical perspective on the dark tourism experience as a generic tourism form. It starts with 12 mini-case scenarios of dark tourism, showcasing its existential variety internationally, and the difficulties of locating the variations within accepted generic tourism criteria, the two main absences being: – homogeneity of product experience, and of a distinctive and identifiable visitor group, committed to “dark experiences.” The chapter revisits the belief that “encounters with death” constitute the core experience, rejecting it as a metaphorical reification, since death is always unknowable absence, not presence. Instead, it is proposed that the encounters at dark tourism sites are, in reality, with embodied remembrance, engineered and manufactured by remembrancers in ways that become the “sights” at memorial sites. Remembrance, it is argued, is a construct that may be understood and engineered in at least three different ways, one or more of which is always inscribed in dark tourism experience. The revised perspective reveals an undervalued truth about “dark” encounters, which is that they are as much about the living – whether individuals, governments or corporations, who choose, engineer and orchestrate memorial forms – as the dead. The chapter concludes with recent instances showing how remembrance choices, shifts and controversies dynamically affect, and are affected by, dark tourism, making it increasingly part of what is now known as “the politics of commemoration”, a zeitgeist issue of our times.