The Characteristics Of Dark Tourism

Nowadays, dark tourism has been involved in the tourism market a lot. It has been opened for tourists for mainly visiting purposes. It starts to get more common as tour operators are generating more profit from it. In terms of a tourist’s perspective, the main attraction for dark tourism is their associations with death and suffering. However, one might argue that dark tourism’s attraction is mainly foe their historical value. By now, there is no clear definition of this tourism niche. Novelli (2005) uses two other authors, Lennon and Foley, in her journal to define dark tourism. She quotes “[Dark] tourism referring to events that have occurred in recent times, which force the visitor to question modernity” (Novelli, 2005). They see dark tourism …show more content…
However, these factors could be critical in a dark tourism perspective. For instance, dark tourism could actually be meaningful. The sit has educational value on it. Dark tourism offers both an educational and emotional tourism experience, conveying important messages related to gaining knowledge of past events, while serving an emotional or potentially therapeutic function as well (Kang, Scott, Lee & Ballantyne, 2011). They argue that dark tourism is not just about horror and death. It can be served as an entertainment purpose as well. They named these dark sites as ‘dark fun factories’, where death and entertainment combined together. The sense of shock, horror, or fear in such attractions differs substantively from those evoked by Holocaust locations (Kang, Scott, Lee & Ballantyne, 2011). It shows that dark tourism could be a form of entertainment as well, rather just death and horror. Moreover, interpretation is an important factor as well. [It] is the means of communication information about a site to its visitors (Kang, Scott, Lee & Ballantyne, …show more content…
For instance, an educational tour, whether is organised by a school, a book or event at a heritage site. He states that “ [These] are the basis of the teaching of history” (Walter, 2009). This is all part of the educational purposes. Even though sometimes human or animal death bodies are present, this is all part of the learning experience. Besides on educating in history, he proposes that there is a significant role in science and medicine as well. Students that are especially in medicine or biology can learn about the living body by observing the dead body. Another argument that Walter has pointed out is the remembrance for the death. He states that “If there is no formal way to care for the dead, all that is left is to remember them” (Walter, 2009). He then differentiate between remembrance and memories. Remembrance entails a commemoration of those whose suffering and death one may not have personally witnesses, but it is not yet history (Walter, 2009). Memory has to do with the personal side. For example, when a family member of yours died in a car crash. Whereas a solider died in a war will considered as remembrance due to his glory or satisfaction for the