Page 29 - Dark Shades of Istria
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1 The Concept of Dark Tourism: Definitions, Recognisability and Critique
Figure 2.1 Global Interest in Tourism-Death Connection Topics (2004–2021; light
gray – war tourism, medium gray – dark tourism, black – thanatourism;
based on data from Google)
global level, the recognisability and interest for these terms is very di-
verse – Figure 2.1 clearly shows the three keywords most often searched
by Google Search users. The others do not appear on the graph due to
a low interest among the wide professional and general public. Terms
like ‘favela tourism,’ (Robb, 2009), ‘atomic’ or ‘nuclear tourism’ (Free-
man, 2014; Gusterson, 2004) and ‘dystopian dark tourism’ (Podoshen et
al., 2015) are not relevant in terms of (memorial) practices in Istria and
were thus excluded from the analysis. The term ‘dark’ is the most fre-
quently searched tourism-related keyword in the developed countries of
North America, Europe (in the post-Yugoslav states, except for Slovenia,
this term is not searched) and Australia, while the other two are searched
to a much lesser extent. Thanatourism as a keyword is most commonly
searched in the United Kingdom, while war tourism appears as the most
frequent one in Australia and Canada. Šuligoj (2017b, p. 447) claims that
this applies to South-Eastern Europe (the area of former Yugoslavia) as
well. These findings are interesting, given the turbulent history of the
wider region.
However, Light (2017, p. 281) treats war tourism as a sub-form of dark
tourism or (closely related) forms of niche tourism, whereas he does not
classify the term thanatourism as a sub-form of dark tourism. If we com-
pare the above-mentioned definitions of dark tourism and thanatourism,
and deliberately ignore that thanatourism has a much longer historical
lineage (p. 279), then significant differences cannot be easily identified.
It is also questionable to put certain other definitions in such a superior-
subordinate relationship. The definition of memorial tourism/tourism of
memory, for example, is semantically very similar to the one of the first
dark tourism definition of Foley and Lennon (1997, p. 155), which includes
remembrance as well.
On the other hand, some more selective forms of the tourism-death
connection show subordination in a more expressive way, since they
29
Figure 2.1 Global Interest in Tourism-Death Connection Topics (2004–2021; light
gray – war tourism, medium gray – dark tourism, black – thanatourism;
based on data from Google)
global level, the recognisability and interest for these terms is very di-
verse – Figure 2.1 clearly shows the three keywords most often searched
by Google Search users. The others do not appear on the graph due to
a low interest among the wide professional and general public. Terms
like ‘favela tourism,’ (Robb, 2009), ‘atomic’ or ‘nuclear tourism’ (Free-
man, 2014; Gusterson, 2004) and ‘dystopian dark tourism’ (Podoshen et
al., 2015) are not relevant in terms of (memorial) practices in Istria and
were thus excluded from the analysis. The term ‘dark’ is the most fre-
quently searched tourism-related keyword in the developed countries of
North America, Europe (in the post-Yugoslav states, except for Slovenia,
this term is not searched) and Australia, while the other two are searched
to a much lesser extent. Thanatourism as a keyword is most commonly
searched in the United Kingdom, while war tourism appears as the most
frequent one in Australia and Canada. Šuligoj (2017b, p. 447) claims that
this applies to South-Eastern Europe (the area of former Yugoslavia) as
well. These findings are interesting, given the turbulent history of the
wider region.
However, Light (2017, p. 281) treats war tourism as a sub-form of dark
tourism or (closely related) forms of niche tourism, whereas he does not
classify the term thanatourism as a sub-form of dark tourism. If we com-
pare the above-mentioned definitions of dark tourism and thanatourism,
and deliberately ignore that thanatourism has a much longer historical
lineage (p. 279), then significant differences cannot be easily identified.
It is also questionable to put certain other definitions in such a superior-
subordinate relationship. The definition of memorial tourism/tourism of
memory, for example, is semantically very similar to the one of the first
dark tourism definition of Foley and Lennon (1997, p. 155), which includes
remembrance as well.
On the other hand, some more selective forms of the tourism-death
connection show subordination in a more expressive way, since they
29
