Too dark to revisit? The role of past experiences and intrapersonal constraints

Abstract

Laden with assorted emotional factors, dark tourism behaviors are heavily influenced by emotion-related factors, such as intrapersonal constraints. By deploying a survey of tourists visiting the Memorial of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, which lies on the darkest edges of the dark tourism spectrum, this study probes how well one's intrapersonal constraints and past experiences relate to one's revisit intention. Results indicate that there are four sub-dimensions in intrapersonal constraints, namely culture, emotion, escape, and incuriousness. The cognitive experiences have significantly positive effects on the revisit intention either through direct effects or via the mediating variables of intrapersonal constraints, while intrapersonal constraints play an indirect-only mediating role in the relationship between affective experiences and revisit intentions. Theoretical and practical contributions of the study findings are discussed within the realm of dark tourism.