ABSTRACT

Dark Tourism, including visitation to places such as murder sites, battlefields and cemeteries is a growing phenomenon, as well as an emergent area of scholarly interest. Despite this interest, the intersecting domains of dark tourism and place identity have been largely overlooked in the academic literature and this book aims to fill this void.

The three main themes of Visitor Motivation, Destination Management and Place Interpretation are addressed in this book from both a demand and supply perspective by examining a variety of case studies from around the world. This edited volume takes the dark tourism discussion to another level by reinforcing the critical intersecting domains of dark tourism and place identity and, in particular, highlighting the importance of understanding this connection for visitors and destination managers.

Written by leading academics in the area, this stimulating volume of 19 chapters will be valuable reading for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students in a range of discipline areas; researchers and academics interested in dark tourism; and, other interested stakeholders including those in the tourism industry, government bodies and community groups.

part |83 pages

Part I Visitormotivation

chapter |15 pages

2 The Père-Lachaise Cemetery

Between dark tourism and heterotopic consumption

chapter |18 pages

3 African Americans at sites of darkness

Roots-seeking, diasporic identities and place making

chapter |14 pages

4 Place identity or place identities

The Memorial to the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, China

part |91 pages

Part II Destination management

chapter |14 pages

8 Soviet tourismin the Baltic states

Remembrance versus nostalgia — just different shades of dark?

chapter |13 pages

9 Turning the negative around

The case of Taupo, New Zealand

chapter |14 pages

10 Commemorating and commodifying the Rwandan genocide

Memorial sites in a politically difficult context

chapter |19 pages

12 Place identities in the Normandy landscape of war

Touring the Canadian sites of memory

part |96 pages

Part III Place interpretation

chapter |15 pages

14 Dark detours

Celebrity car crash deaths and trajectories of place

chapter |19 pages

15 Marvellous, murderous and macabre Melbourne

Taking a walk on the dark side

chapter |12 pages

16 War and ideological conflict

Prisoner of war camps as a tourist experience in South Korea

chapter |16 pages

17 Dark tourismin the Top End

Commemorating the bombing of Darwin

chapter |12 pages

18 Darkness beyond memory

The battlefields at Culloden and Little Bighorn

chapter |7 pages

19 Beyond the dark side

Research directions for dark tourism