Dark Tourism

Interest in dark tourism is on the rise. Defined as visitation of sites associated with death, disaster, and atrocity, this phenomenon is of interest to the wider public and academics alike, and has become a lucrative commercial practice. Media, movies, and accounts of breaking-news events help stimulate dark tourism. Dark tourism activities include visits to battlefields, sites of individual or mass deaths, and memorials, and witnessing public reenactments of death or symbolic representations of death. Dark tourism is a complex, emotional, and multifaceted phenomenon in terms of its economic and social consumption, as well as regarding its cultural and political significance at individual and collective levels.