Medieval Dungeons on AirBnB and picnics in graveyards put the ethics of 'dark tourism' into question.
'Dark Tourism’ is an umbrella term that first appeared in the late 1960s and refers to the flocking of tourists to macabre destinations ranging from medieval castles and dungeons, such as ‘Dracula’s’ Bran castle in Romania, to places of human tragedies, such as Auschwitz in Poland. These attractions allure hundreds of thousands of tourists every year for a myriad of reasons, but the number of travellers that are attracted to the sites of historical atrocities raises questions about the ethics of dark tourism as an industry.
Considering dark tourism to be an industry at all means that, to a certain extent, these historical and cultural sites are being offered as profitable goods. This commercialisation and the act of transforming a landmark of disturbing human history into a desirable bucket-list trip destination erases its significance in an effort to make it more profitable and enjoyable to a global audience. In Bali, indigenous death ceremonies can now be attended by tourists on tours thrown together as soon as travel companies hear of someone’s passing. In Washington D.C., tourists visiting the holocaust museum can be given a fake ID card that matches them to a holocaust victim of their age and gender. Selling death, torture and genocide as an indulgence to international tourists is a rising problem as dark tourism allures a broader clientele.
Image Credits: Recoltas Cementery in Buenos Aires, Andera Ronton, Unsplash
This commercialisation and the act of transforming a landmark of disturbing human history into a desirable bucket-list trip destination erases its significance...
On the other hand, dark tourism is a valuable branch of travel that allows us to better understand the past. Trips to museums that make history more accessible and allow us to interact with the past trauma of mankind are merely carrying out the same tasks as high school history classes. In fact, by operating on a larger, international scale, dark tourist destinations can more accurately and directly offer insight into our past, providing a better standing for us to analyse the present, and charter our future.
Image Credits: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, J. Amill Santiago, Unsplash
...dark tourist destinations can more accurately and directly offer insight into our past, providing a better standing for us to analyse the present, and charter our future.
The drive behind people’s desire to see places where true crimes against humanity were committed may be dark and twisted, or it may be a simple urge to see the history we learn about in textbooks with their own eyes. The real ethical dangers of dark tourism however, come from its commercial exploitation and those who gain from it not intellectually, but financially.
