Unravelling Fear of Death Motives in Dark Tourism

The relative simplicity of the term ‘dark tourism’, which has achieved a broad if not contested acceptance within academia and industry alike, is in contrast to the multifaceted nature of the phenomenon. Embedded in this complexity is the association dark tourism makes between the presentation and consumption of death in the context of tourism, as well as the complex relationships humans have with death and mortality—as individuals as well as societies. Tourism has been traditionally explored from a hedonistic perspective and, subsequently, has assumed that consumption of tourism products and destinations predominately serve the purpose of experiencing fun and pleasure (Gnoth, 1997; Malone et al., 2014). Death, conflict, and atrocity sites which elicit sadness, distress, and an inherent sense of danger have been predominately considered deterring factors for tourists (Biran et al., 2014; Buda, 2015a). An important aspect of dark tourism—that of human suffering—has made it difficult to apply traditional tourism motivational theories to its study (Dunkley et al., 2011). Moreover, with the seemingly pleasure-oriented consumption of tourism in places connected to death and tragedy, visits to such sites have been often portrayed as immoral, deviant, or a social pathology (Biran and Poria, 2012; Stone and Sharpley, 2013; also see Chap. 7)