Dark tourism

Murambi Technical School where many of the murders in the Rwandan genocide took place is now a genocide museum.

Dark tourism (also black tourism or grief tourism) is tourism involving travel to sites associated with death and tragedy. Thanatourism, derived from the Ancient Greek word thanatos for the personification of death, is associated with dark tourism but refers more specifically to violent death; it is used in fewer contexts than the terms dark tourism and grief tourism. The main draw however to these locations is mostly due to their historical value rather than their associations with death and suffering.

This includes castles and battlefields such as Culloden in Scotland and Bran Castle and Poienari Castle in Romania; sites of disaster, either natural or man made, such as Hiroshima in Japan, Chernobyl in Ukraine and the Ground Zero in New York; Auschwitz in Poland; prisons now open to the public such as Beaumaris Prison in Anglesey, Wales; and purpose built centers such as the London Dungeon. It also includes other sites of human atrocities and genocide, such as the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in Nanjing and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia.

As a field

Dark Tourism became a field of study in 1996 when the term was coined by Professor John Lennon and Malcolm Foley of Glasgow Caledonian University. Scholars have analyzed both recent and ancient settings which attract visitors and are associated with death. Scholars of the field hope to understand tourist motivation for visiting such locations. Dr. Philip Stone, a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, is another one of the individuals currently studying this field. He has written several journals and given presentations on the subject. He has tried to determine moral and social effects of dark tourism, pointing out how individuals come together in these places associated with grief and death. Stone has also stated how dark tourism represents immorality so that morality may be communicated.

Other viewpoints

Dark tourism has been seen as a form of exploitation. Entrepreneurs may attempt to use the emotional reactions of the visitors to the site to generate profit. Traffic to areas such as "ground zero" in New York City enables commercial activity related to dark tourism. Demarcations, such as signs and historical markers, may remind the dark tourists of the subject of their endeavor and may prompt them to purchase merchandise.

See also

• War tourism

External links

• "What is dark tourism?", The Guardian special feature
• Dark Tourism Forum
• Grief tourism blog
• Dark Tourism Ideas in Latin America
• Chernobyl: Unlikely Tourist Spot - slideshow by Life magazine
• Places of interest along Hitlers Atlantic Wall in Denmark and Norway