The Concept of Dark Tourism, Visitors’ Motivation and the Entailed Dissonance in Sites Representation (original) (raw)

Motivation Factors in Dark Tourism

Dark tourism is a multi-layered mixture of history and heritage, tourism and tragedies. Humanity has been interested in the end of life since the time of pilgrimages. In contemporary society the individual has been isolated from the end of life and even discussing it is considered taboo. Why do people travel to dark attractions associated with death and suffering if even talking about them is so hard?

Tourists’ Motivations for Visiting Dark Tourism Sites. Case of Romania

Analele Universităţii din Oradea, 2021

Nowadays, tourism plays an essential role in economic growth and development in many countries. Tourists have different travelling motivations and behavioural manifestations, helping tour operators decide suitable for them. Developing a dark tourism niche concept is a necessary step for correct use of it in theory and practice. Dark tourism is an important concept studied in the past twenty years in worldwide literature. This empirical paper aimed to determine the tourists' motivations for travelling to Romania's dark tourism destinations and establishing them. A quantitative research method was applied based on a survey using a non-probabilistic technique based on convenience sampling. Secondary, it was studied the relationship between motivational determinants and tourists' attitude-behaviour in visiting dark tourism sites (Theory of Planned Behaviour, TPB). The survey conducted online was primarily made of 40 items evaluated on the Likert scale. It has been used a sample based on 475 Romanian respondents: 72.3% who had already visited a dark tourism destination in Romania, and 27.8% who stated they planned to visit one. The theoretical framework has analysed five constructs as motivational determinants in the relationships with behavioural construct attitude (TPB). The results show support for two of five research hypotheses (H1 and H4). Dark experience (H1) and Unique learning experience (H4) have a significant and positive effect on Attitude. We did not find any significant effect of Engaging entertainment, Casual interest, and Emotional recreation on Attitude. Hence, H2, H3 and H5 are not supported. Based on these results, the government can develop tourism economic and marketing policy to develop dark tourism as important post-communist niche tourism. The practitioners can develop and promote tourism packages and products by applying the correct use of dark tourism sense. The present scientific paper's originality is given by the lack of literature review studies based on empirical research on this topic. Limits of the research and future research directions are also pointed out in the conclusion part.

Development of "dark" tourism in the contemporary society

Journal of the Geographical Institute Jovan Cvijic, SASA, 2012

The paper focuses on the development of "dark" tourism as a type of special interest tourism. The study included analysis of the definition of "dark" tourism, tourist motivations for this type of tourism, Stone' s typology of dark destination offers, and a portion is devoted to the role of "dark" tourism in contemporary society. Also there are important "dark" tourism destinations in the world as an example of this type of tourism development. The work includes a reference to the promotion of dark tourism in Romania, as a destination that has largely failed to impose itself on the world tourism market because this form of tourism promotion. In the first part special attention is paid to the special interest tourism, which is a new development that drives modern society. Modern tourists have a different kind of motivation when they are planning travel and tour operators need to focus on current trends. One of the trends relating to the development of "dark" tourism and some of the countries at the national level is positioned as a destination which are distinguished by this kind of tourism. There is the space for this type of tourism development, but they require specific solutions that are distinctive to each country.

Dark Tourism: Understanding the Concept and Recognizing the Values

Journal of APF Command and Staff College

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 generate...

The Dark Tourist: An Insight into the Appeal of Dark Tourism

ATITHYA: A Journal of Hospitality, 2017

Tourism is a multifaceted sector, which is manifested in various forms, including dark tourism. Of late there seem to be an increase in the number of tourist opting for Dark Tourism. This paper studies the motivating factors that influence tourists to visit places that have a past which may be haunted, have a sinister past or is related to death.

Dark tourism and memorial tourism: Nexus and divergences between theoretical models

European Journal of Tourism Research, 2018

In the context of the huge diversification in the field of cultural heritage, there are nowadays many touristic places whose main appeal lies in the connection with tragic events. Beyond the scope of cultural tourism, it may be confusing to classify them due to the extraordinary richness and heterogeneity of the different types of tourism as typified by tourism science. Thus, the scientific community uses several labels to name the tourism practices carried out in touristic places linked to tragedy. Among the many, it is worth pointing out dark tourism and memorial tourism, not only because of their undeniable academic impact, but also because of the media relevance gained. This article deals with the problems faced when it comes to determining the boundaries of what may be considered dark tourism or memorial tourism. After a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical contributions regarding both models, what is most relevant is why and in which contexts one term or the other is used.

Dark Tourism - New Form of Tourism in Romania

Annals Economy Series, 2014

It is discussing,increasingly more often, in contemporary tourism, about new elements that enhances the appearance and development of new forms of tourism, including dark tourism which is based on the increasingly desire of modern tourist to achieve spiritual journeys, which have as attractions-deaths, disasters, atrocities, torture methods and other such issues. This subject has awoke our interest because we can find in Romania demand for this form of tourism but also various possibilities to use it in Romanian tourist circuits and also in the development of authentic tourism products with this subject. For Romania, this new form of tourism showed interest to academic research and to media, but in tourism literature we find a vacuum of information, being quite difficult to identify and label as dark tourism product a particular tourist site, a certain attraction or exhibition associated with death and dark, sinister and frightening elements, but we will try to discover certain components of this kind in Romanian tourism products.

Commemorative events at destination memorials – a dark (heritage) tourism context

International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2017

In the past, sites and events related to war and atrocities were viewed in the wider context of heritage tourism. The term 'dark' was added with the aim of recognising heritage sites closely related to death and suffering. Given that commemorative events as part of dark heritage are not prevalent in heritage and tourism literature, there is a need to understand the behaviour of visitors involved in visiting these sites or attending this type of event, which presents a special challenge. Public commemorations, especially those that mark particularly disturbing occurrences, such as 'The Great School Hour'-an event which is presented in the artistic form of a 'school class'-are unique form of tourist activity that has not been thoroughly investigated previously. Thus, the aim of the study is to explore the influence of the main motivators on revisit intention and willingness to recommend for those who attended the commemorative event 'The Great School Hour' in Kragujevac, Serbia, with a particular focus on younger people. The results suggest that learning, emotional response and uniqueness have a significant positive effect on revisit intention, while emotional response and uniqueness have a significant positive effect on willingness to recommend.

Dark Tourism as a Type of Special Interest Tourism: Dark Tourism Potential of Turkey

Akademik Turizm ve Yönetim Araştırmaları Dergisi

Destinations create regional differences in the marketing field in order to gain competitive advantage and sustainability amongst rival destinations. The developments of the new marketing strategies for attracting tourist lead the differences among destinations. Furthermore, recently it is observed that depending on the demand for tourism there has been diversity in tourism habits. Thus, types of special interest tourism have occurred due to newly emerged different demands, habits, and interests. One of the types of this special interest tourism is dark tourism. Dark tourism is a type of special interest tourism which is associated with feelings death, pain, grief, and so on. The main purpose of the paper is to explain the concept of dark tourism and to increase the awareness for special interest tourism by highlighting tourism destinations having the potential of dark tourism in Turkey. In this paper, the importance of recently developing a concept of dark tourism has been emphasized and various suggestions have been made for future studies on the subject by giving place to the dark tourism destinations having the most tourist potential in Turkey.