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The overall purpose of this study is to utilize the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in combination with four dark tourism constructs (dark experience, engaging entertainment, unique learning experience, and casual interest) to gain a better understanding of behaviors and intentions of tourists who have visited or plan to visit a dark tourism location.

A total of 1,068 useable questionnaires was collected via Qualtrics Panels for analysis purposes. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to verify satisfactory reliability and validity regarding the measurement of model fit. With adequate model fit, structural equation modeling was employed to determine positive and negative relationships between TPB and dark tourism constructs. In all, 11 hypotheses statements were tested within this study.

Results of this study indicate that tourists are curious, interested, and intrigued by dark experiences with paranormal activity, resulting in travel choices made for themselves based on personal beliefs and preferences, with minimal outside influence from others. It was determined that dark experience was the most influential of the dark tourism constructs tested in relationship to attitudes and subjective norm.

The data collected for this study were collected using Qualtrics Panels with self-reporting participants. The actual destination visited by survey participants was also not factored into the results of this research study.

This study provides a new theoretical research model that merges TPB and dark tourism constructs and established that there is a relationship between TPB constructs and dark tourism.

The Euro-centric nature of dark tourism research is limiting the perspective and restricting the scope of contemporary theory. Hence, this paper aims to explore how dark tourism consumption differs in a society apart from the Anglo/Eurosphere. This is done by testing Stone and Sharpley’s (2008) thanatological framework in Mexico, a country whose residents are renown for having a unique perspective on death, to assess whether Mexican dark tourism consumers undergo a similar, or different, thanatological experience to that proposed in the framework.

The study adopts a qualitative approach in the form of a case study. The opinions of Mexican dark tourism consumers were gained by using the technique of semi-structured interviewing in four separate dark tourism sites within Mexico City, with coding serving as the form of analysis.

The findings show that due to the non-existence of an absent/present death paradox in Mexican society, the research participants experienced a thanatological process that contrasts with those from Western societies, which indicates that the thanatological framework is unsuitable in the context of Mexican dark tourism. At the same time, the study contests the common perception that Mexicans have a jovial familiarity with death, and demonstrates that in this case the thanatological process confirmed an acceptance of death, rather than any kind of intimacy.

The research is valuable in that it is a response to recent calls for research in geographical locations not previously considered in a dark tourism/thanatology context.

This paper attempts to fill the gap that exists in research regarding visitor motivations at dark heritage sites. The purpose of this paper is to explore the motivations of visitors to the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum (HPMM) as an iconic dark site in South Africa to identify what motivates visitation and which demographic variables may have an influence on these motivators.

To achieve the goal of this research, 205 participants completed a self-administered questionnaire using a random sampling technique at the HPMM. A statistical analysis through the use of factor analysis revealed seven motivational factors.

Novelty and knowledge seeking, remembrance and curiosity were identified as the three main motives for visiting HPMM. Novelty and knowledge seeking was found to be the main motive that contradicted similar research done in other parts of the globe. Escape and relaxation, which is usually found to be one of the main motivators to heritage sites, was revealed to be one of the least motivators for this study. The results also identified significant relationships between demographic and motivator variables.

The findings of this study revealed that people visit the HPMM primarily for novelty and knowledge seeking, remembrance and respect for victims and curiosity. From the results, it is clear that visitors are driven to visit the site for different motives and that these motives, although common amongst visitors, differ from person to person subject to demographic differences. This study provides an improved understanding of dark tourism demand, which is essential for the sustainable development and promotion of sites in South Africa and globally commemorating people’s struggle against injustice and for democracy.

South Africa is a country with a cosmopolitan history; however, the history associated with apartheid has only recently become topic of tourism research. This study provides a basis to better understand the type of tourist visiting these sites of historical sites, thus leading to better provision of services to visit such attractions.

This study is one of the first to delve into understanding the motivational typology of tourists to a tourism attraction in South Africa associated with the country’s Apartheid-era heritage. It provides an insight into enhancing the current fragmented understanding of dark tourism demand.

This paper aims to analyse the development of the pilgrimage phenomenon over the past few decades. Pilgrimage was the first tourism mobility to come into existence thousands of years ago. In recent decades, its significance has decreased, as other tourism segments have gained prominence. Although modern tourism is regarded as a relatively new phenomenon, its origins are clearly rooted in the age-old practice of pilgrimage. Indeed, the development of tourism is difficult to understand without a thorough comprehension of the practice of pilgrimage in ancient times.

This paper analyses the development of the pilgrimage phenomenon over the past few decades. The phenomenon of Pilgrimage Tourism and the nexus between the two mobilities has been experiencing tremendous changes over the past few decades and is still in the midst of an on-going process of transformation.

This paper concludes with the prediction that pilgrimage will re-emerge when the many similar segments – particularly, spiritual tourism, heritage tourism, religious tourism, dark tourism and secular pilgrimage – are re-identified as pilgrimage: a mobility for the search for meaning that contains an element of transformation that is often deep and enduring (as they were viewed at the dawn of humanity and for thousands of years).

This review has examined the development of pilgrimage tourism as a research topic, highlighting the importance of re-examining our contemporary usage of terms in order to allow for broader interpretations of different phenomena in the field of tourism. These conclusions are consistent with the current calls for a fundamental rethinking of the paradigms and the norms shaping scholarship on pilgrimage, dark tourism and tourism as a whole from a post-disciplinary perspective based on synthesis and synergy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the recovery and resilience tourism strategies and possible future development of four main Chinese tourism cities.

The authors collected data from the official accounts of tourism administrations of these cities, tourist attractions and opinions from media and newspapers in Sina Weibo platform. The authors adopted an inductive approach in observing relevant social media posts and applied content analysis to identify main China’s tourism prevention and recovery strategies.

During the mass pandemic infection period, top-down prevention and control measures were implemented by the Chinese central and local governments, with feasible and regional recovery policies and protocols being adapted according to local situations. Measures related to tourism industrial re-employment, improvement of international images and governmental financial supports to re-boost local tourism in Chinese cities were paid great attention. Digitalization, close-to-nature and cultural heritages became important factors in the future development of China’s tourism. Dark tourism, as a potential tourism recovery strategy, also obtained huge emergence, for the memory of people deceased in the pandemic and for the inheritance of national patriotism.

This study enriches the current literature in urban tourism recovery studies analyzing the specific case of Chinese tourism cities and fulfill some voids of previous research mostly focused on the first wave of the pandemic and the recovery strategies mainly of Western cities. It also provides valuable suggestions to tourism practitioners, destinations and urban cities in dealing with regional tourism recession and finding possible solutions for the scenario associated to the COVID-19 and other similar health crisis.

This paper aims to examine the antagonistic coexistence of different tourism imaginaries in global post-viral social landscapes. Such antagonisms may be resolved at the expense of the ethics of tourism mobility, if not adjudicated by post-human reflexivity. Currently, unreflexive behaviours involve the refusal to conform to lifesaving “stay-at-home” policies, the tendency to book holidays and the public inspection of death zones.

Each of the consumption styles explored in this paper to discuss post-COVID-19 tourism recovery corresponds to at least one tourist imaginary, antagonistically placed against social imaginaries of moral betterment, solidarity, scientific advancement, national security and labour equality. A multi-modal collection of audio-visual and textual data, gathered through social media and the digital press, is categorised and analysed via critical discourse analysis.

Data in the public domain suggest a split between pessimistic and optimistic attitudes that forge different tourism futures. These attitudes inform different imaginaries with different temporal orientations and consumption styles.

COVID-has exposed the limits of the capacity to efficiently address threats to both human and environmental ecosystems. As once popular tourist locales/destinations are turned by COVID-2019s spread into risk zones with morbid biographical records their identities alter and their imaginaries of suffering become anthropocentric.

Using Castoriadis’ differentiation between social and radical imaginaries, Foucault’s biopolitical analysis, Sorokin’s work on mentalities and Sorel’s reflections on violence, the author argue that this paper has entered a new phase in the governance and experience of tourism, which subsumes the idealistic basis of tourist imaginaries as cosmopolitan representational frameworks under the techno-cultural imperatives of risk, individualistic growth through the adventure (“edgework”) and heritage preservation. This paper also needs to reconsider the contribution of technology (not technocracy) to sustainable post-COVID-19 scenarios of tourism recovery.

This paper aims to examine critically the literature on transformational tourism and explore a research agenda for a post-COVID future.

A systematic review of the transformational tourism literature is performed over a 42-year period from 1978 to 2020.

Further research is required in terms of how transformative experiences should be calibrated and measured both in qualitative and quantitative terms, particularly from the perspective of how tourists are transformed by their experiences. Similarly, the nature and depth of these transformative processes remain poorly understood, particularly given the many different types of tourism associated with transformative experiences, which range from religious pilgrimages to backpacking and include several forms of ecotourism.

Future research directions for transformational tourism are discussed with regard to how COVID-19 will transform the dynamics of tourism and travel, including the role of new smart technologies in the creation of enhanced transformational experiences, and the changing expectations and perceptions of transformative travel in the post-COVID era. In addition, the researchers call for future studies on transformational tourism to explore the role of host communities in the delivery of meaningful visitor experiences.

Transformational tourism is an emerging body of research, which has attracted a growing level of interest among tourism scholars in recent years. However, to this date, a systematic review of published literature in this field has not been conducted yet in a holistic sense. This paper offers a framework for future research in this field.

This paper aims to revolve around two problems which, though imagined as different, can be addressed altogether. On one hand, the advance of terrorism as a major threat to the tourism industry, while – on the other – we discuss the ontological nature of tourism as a rite of passage, which is vital to keep the political legitimacy of officialdom. At the time, paradoxically, social scientists shrug off tourism as a naïve commercial activity, while the main tourist destinations are being attacked by jihadism. This suggests the disinterest of ones associates to the interests of others.

The author holds the thesis that tourism derives from ancient institutions, which illuminated in the growth of Occident and the formation of hospitality. Capitalism hides the importance of tourism as a mere trivialization as a bit-player. However, a closer look reminds precisely the opposite. The recent attacks perpetrated at main destinations reveal tourism as an exemplary (symbolic) center of the West, a source of authority and power for the existing hierarchal order.

The issue captivates the attention of scholars, officials and policymakers, and at the same time, epistemologists of tourism receive a fresh novel debate regarding the origins of tourism.

It is a great paradox that tourism would be selected as a target for jihadism but at the same time a naïve activity for social scientists or at the least by the French tradition. Despite the partisan criticism exerted on tourism as an alienatory force, this work showed two important aspects, which merits to be discussed. At a closer look, tourism should be understood as “a rite of passage” whose function associates to the revitalization of those glitches happened during the cycles of production. Second, and most important, tourism accommodates those frustrations to prevent acts of separatism or the rise of extreme conflict among classes.

This paper aims to analyse the most significant disruptive events affecting tourism during the twenty-first century, particularly the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on a thorough literature review, this study takes a complexity science approach to the field of tourism to shed light on the challenges of disruptive events in tourism systems.

Focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, this study acknowledges that disruptive events are complex and have tremendous impacts on several areas of society: people’s psychological well-being and the health-care system, as well as social, economic, cultural, technological, environmental and political dimensions. Whether they occur alone or interact, these dimensions add varying levels of complexity to the tourism system. In response, the tourism industry can adopt a resilience model as a crisis management tool to address disruptive events affecting this field.

As this paper is mainly theoretical, future empirical research will contribute to refining the findings and testing the usefulness of the proposed model.

The paper looks at examples of successful and unsuccessful of COVID-19 outbreak management in various countries to analyse issues such as crisis management, resilience and tools for coping with the impacts of disruptive events.

This theoretical paper proposes a first taxonomy of the multidimensional impacts of twenty-first-century disruptive events on tourism and dissects the phases of crisis management, with a corresponding conceptual model.

本文分析了21世纪影响旅游业的最为重要的破坏性事件, 尤其关注2020年新型冠状病毒肺炎大流行

本文将复杂性科学方法应用于旅游领域, 通过全面的文献综述, 揭示破坏性事件给旅游系统带来的挑战。

本文承认破坏性事件, 特别是新型冠状病毒肺炎大流行, 复杂且影响巨大, 涉及心理、医疗、社会、经济、文化、技术、环境和政治等诸多方面。这些影响不管是单一的还是相互作用的, 都在不同程度上增加了旅游系统的复杂性。旅游业可以将弹性模型作为危机管理工具, 以应对其领域内的破坏性事件。

本文首次提出了21世纪破坏性事件对旅游业的多维影响的分类法, 并对危机管理的各个阶段进行了剖析。本文还提出了一个综合模型。

由于本文以理论为主, 未来的实证研究将有助于完善研究结果和验证所提出模型的实用性。

本文着眼于不同国家新冠疫情管理的成功和失败案例, 分析危机管理、复原力以及应对破坏性事件影响的方法等问题。

Identificar los eventos disruptivos mundiales más importantes que han afectado el turismo en el siglo XXI poniendo especial atención en la pandemia causada por el COVID-19 en el 2020.

Mediante un enfoque a las ciencias de la complejidad aplicado al turismo y una exhaustiva revisión bibliográfica, este artículo esclarece el reto que significa un evento disruptivo en el turismo.

Los eventos disruptivos, en particular el COVID-19, son complejos y generan un alto impacto tanto en el aspecto psicológico, sanitario, social, económico, cultural, tecnológico, medioambiental y político. En su interacción, todos ellos añaden un diferente grado de complejidad al sistema del turismo. Este artículo propone adoptar un modelo de resiliencia como herramienta de gestión de crisis para afrontar eventos disruptivos en el campo del turismo.

Proponer una primera clasificación de los impactos multidimensionales de los eventos disruptivos del siglo XXI en el turismo y un desglose de las fases de gestión de crisis, como así también proponer un modelo integrador de ambos aspectos propios de un evento disruptivo.

Debido al carácter teórico de este artículo, el modelo integrador sugerido representa un marco prometedor para futuras investigaciones en el plano empírico.

Este artículo presta atención a aquellos países que han gestionado la pandemia de forma exitosa o no, para así tener una mejor noción de gestión de crisis y herramientas para hacer frente a futuros eventos disruptivos.