Dark tourism (also black tourism or grief tourism) is tourism involving travel to sites associated with death and suffering. Thanatourism,[1] 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, grief tourism, dark tourism, and quite tourism.
This includes castles and battlefields such as Culloden near Inverness, Scotland, Chernobyl in ex USSR, or Bran Castle, Poienari Castle in Romania; sites of disaster, either natural or man made such as Ground Zero in New York; prisons now open to the public such as Beaumaris Prison in Anglesey, Wales; and purpose built centers such as the London Dungeon. A notable example is how tourism to Detroit is sometimes geared towards looking at the fall of the former glamor instead of what it has managed to retain.
The best-known destination for dark tourism is the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz in Poland.
Notes
- ^ Heritage, Museums and Galleries: An Introductory Reader, by Gerard Corsane, 2005. Page 266
External links
- Dark Tourism blog
- "What is dark tourism?", The Guardian special feature.
- Dark Tourism Forum
- Grief tourism blog
- Dark Tourism Ideas in Latin America
- Places of interest along Hitlers Atlantic Wall in Denmark and Norway
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