This timely book is the first to explore the physical and intangible legacies of historic and contemporary dark tourism sites, and the contribution such sites make to place identity. It achieves this by critically reviewing the marketing, management and interpretation of contemporary and historic sites associated with death, disaster, atrocity and related events from a wide range of geographical locations. In doing so the book proposes a compose model for discussing place identity and dark tourism which will provide further understanding about these increasingly popular destinations.

Dark Tourism has seen a surge in popularity in the last decade as people seek a richer travel experience, choosing to meaningfully engage with humankind’s more troubling heritage, rather than opting for merely escapist vacations.

This book is the first its kind to offer an innovative examination of the intersecting influences, contexts, and challenges within the field of children’s dark tourism. It also outlines novel conceptualizations and methods for scholarship in this overlooked field. Presently, tourism research, and in dark tourism specifically, relies primarily on adult-centered theories and data collection methods. However, these approaches are inadequate for understanding and developing children’s experiences and perspectives. This book seeks to inform and inspire research on children’s experiences of dark tourism. Designed to appeal to students and scholars, it brings together insights from leading experts. The book focuses on five themes, to explore the conceptual and historic origins of children’s dark tourism, developmental contexts, child perspectives, specific contexts relevant to children’s encounters, and methodological approaches. This book is aimed at an international array of scholars and students with inherent research interests in the contemporary commodification of death and ‘difficult heritage’ within the visitor economy. Thus, the book will provide a multi-disciplinary scope within the fields of history, heritage studies, childhood studies, psychology, education, sociology, human geography, and tourism studies. The volume is primarily intended for undergraduate and postgraduate study, as well as scholars and tourism professionals.

By understanding tourist destinations through the lens of national identity, the tourist may develop a deeper appreciation of the destination. Further, tourism marketers and planners may be better equipped to promote and manage the destination, particularly with regard to expectations of the potential visitor. Tourism and National Identities is the first volume to fully explore the relationship between tourism and national identities and the multiple ways in which cultural tourism, events and celebrations contribute to national identity. It examines core topics critical to understanding this relationship including: tourism branding, stereotyping and national identity; tourism-related representation and experience of national identity; tourism visitation/site/event management and the relationship to cultural tourism. The book looks at a range of international tourist sites and events, combines multidisciplinary perspectives and international cases to provide a thorough academic analysis. The interconnecting area of cultural tourism and national identity has been largely overlooked in the academic literature to date. This book gives considerable analysis to the complex relationship between the two domains and indeed, the multifaceted strategies used to define that relationship. Written by an international team of leading academics, Tourism and National Identities will be of interest to students, researchers and academics in tourism and related disciplines such as events, cultural studies and geography.

This book provides original, innovative, and international tourism research that is embedded in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary theoretical and methodological thought in the study of dark tourism. It is almost 25 years since the idea of dark tourism was introduced and presented into the field of tourism studies. The impact of this idea was greater, which attracted a great deal of attention from different researchers and practitioners with a good range of disciplines and farther tourism studies. This edited volume aims to capture a glimpse of the types of cutting-edge thinking and academic research in the domain of dark tourism studies as well as encourage and advance theoretical, conceptual, and empirical research on dark tourism. The book also addresses several future research directions focusing on the experience and emotions of visitors at ‘dark tourism’ sites. This book will be valuable reading for students, researchers and academics interested in dark tourism. Other interested stakeholders including those in the tourism industry, government bodies and community groups will also find this volume relevant. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Heritage Tourism.

This handbook is the definitive reference text for the study of ‘dark tourism’, the contemporary commodification of death within international visitor economies. Shining a light on dark tourism and visitor sites of death or disaster allows us to better understand issues of global tourism mobilities, tourist experiences, the co-creation of touristic meaning, and ‘difficult heritage’ processes and practices. Adopting multidisciplinary perspectives from authors representing every continent, the book combines ‘real-world’ viewpoints from both industry and the media with conceptual underpinning, and offers comprehensive and grounded perspectives of ‘heritage that hurts’. The handbook adopts a progressive and thematic approach, including critical accounts of dark tourism history, dark tourism philosophy and theory, dark tourism in society and culture, dark tourism and heritage landscapes, the ‘dark tourist’ experience, and the business of dark tourism. The Palgrave Handbook of Dark Tourism Studies will appeal to students and scholars with an interest in aspects of memorialisation and morality in sociology, death studies, history, geography, cultural studies, philosophy, psychology, business management, museology and heritage tourism studies, politics, religious studies, and anthropology.