Progress in dark tourism and thanatourism research: An uneasy relationship with heritage tourism

This paper reviews academic research into dark tourism and thanatourism over the 1996–2016 period. The aims of this paper are threefold. First, it reviews the evolution of the concepts of dark tourism and thanatourism, highlighting similarities and differences between them. Second it evaluates progress in 6 key themes and debates. These are: issues of the definition and scope of the concepts; ethical issues associated with such forms of tourism; the political and ideological dimensions of dark tourism and thanatourism; the nature of demand for places of death and suffering; the management of such places; and the methods of research used for investigating such tourism. Third, research gaps and issues that demand fuller scrutiny are identified. The paper argues that two decades of research have not convincingly demonstrated that dark tourism and thanatourism are distinct forms of tourism, and in many ways they appear to be little different from heritage tourism

Post-modernity and the exceptionalism of the present in dark tourism

The paper is a polemical essay concerning approaches to the historical other; a critique of the exceptionalism of the present displayed in some of the contemporary dark tourism literature. We review claims in this literature that dark tourism is both a product of and signifier for post-modernity. We utilise the criteria underpinning these claims to analyse two historical cases of thanatological travel in the first half of the 19th century and conclude that, as both cases self-evidently demonstrate recognisably ‘contemporary’ aspects of dark tourism, conceiving of the latter as ‘post-modern’ is historically inaccurate and misguided. The essay closes with a plea for a historically-informed sensitivity in researching the field