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This paper aims to investigate the visitor experience at a “lightest” dark tourism attraction, focusing on issues of thanatopsis and mortality mediation.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 24 visitors to a “Dungeon”-style attraction in the UK (a site of “lightest” dark tourism). The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis; four themes were identified.

Reflection on, and contemplation of, issues of life and death was a common (but not universal) component of the visitor experience. Four forms of such reflection were apparent: considering absent/present death; thanatopsis (reflection on the self’s inevitable mortality); reflecting on the nature of death and dying in the past; and enjoyment of the opportunity to engage with death without fear in the safe setting of a visitor attraction. Some visitors also reflected on issues of individual and collective morality, in both past and present.

“Lightest” dark tourism is not necessarily about shallow experiences. Instead, many visitors are active agents, engaged in acts of making meaning about issues of death and life. This calls for a more sophisticated conceptualisation of such visitors.

The mortality mediation model is widely accepted as a way of explaining the experience of visiting places of death but has rarely been subject to empirical scrutiny. This is one of few studies to explore in detail issues of mortality mediation and thanatopsis in the context of “lightest” dark tourism.

数据是通过对 24 名英国“地牢”式景点（“最轻微”黑色旅游景点）游客的半结构化访谈收集的。访谈采用主题分析法进行分析并确定了 4 个主题。

本文是对“最轻微”黑暗旅游景点的游客体验的实证调查，重点关注死亡冥想和死亡临界问题。

对生死问题的反思和思考是游客体验的一个常见（但不普遍适用）组成部分。这种反思的四种形式是显而易见的：缺席/现有的死亡认知； 死亡冥想（对自我不可避免的死亡的反思）；反思死亡的本质和过去的死亡；并享受在安全的旅游景点环境中毫无畏惧地与死亡打交道的机会。一些参观者还反思了过去和现在的个人和集体道德问题。

“最轻微”的黑暗旅游不一定是肤浅的体验。相反，许多访客是积极的中间人，从事为生死问题赋予意义的行为。这需要对此类访问者进行更复杂的概念化理解。

死亡临界/调节模型作为一种解释访问死亡地的体验的方式被广泛接受，但很少通过经验研究来验证。这是在“最轻微”黑暗旅游背景下详细探讨死亡临界和死亡问题的少数研究之一。

Los datos se recopilaron a través de entrevistas semiestructuradas con 24 visitantes a un calabozo, un estilo de atracción turística en el Reino Unido (se diseña como un lugar de turismo oscuro "más ligero"). Las entrevistas se analizaron mediante análisis temático; Se identificaron 4 temas.

Este artículo es una investigación empírica de la experiencia del visitante en una atracción turística oscura "más ligera", que se centra en cuestiones de tanatopsis y mediación de la mortalidad.

La reflexión y la contemplación de cuestiones de la vida, así como la muerte, plantean un componente común (pero no universal) en la experiencia del visitante. Se identificaron, aparentemente, cuatro formas de reflexión: considerar la muerte presente/ausente; tanatopsis (reflexión sobre la inevitable mortalidad del yo); reflexionar sobre la naturaleza de la muerte y morir en el pasado y disfrute de la oportunidad de relacionarse con la muerte sin miedo a un entorno seguro, dentro de una atracción turística. Algunos visitantes también reflexionaron sobre cuestiones de moralidad individual y colectiva, tanto del pasado como del presente.

El turismo oscuro "más ligero", no se trata necesariamente de experiencias superficiales. En cambio, muchos visitantes son agentes activos, involucrados en actos de dar sentido a los problemas de la muerte y la vida. Esto requiere una conceptualización más sofisticada de dichos visitantes.

El modelo de mediación de la mortalidad es ampliamente aceptado, como una forma de explicar la experiencia de visitar lugares de muerte, pero rara vez ha sido objeto de un análisis empírico. Este es uno de los pocos estudios que explora en detalle cuestiones de mediación de la mortalidad y tanatopsis en el contexto del turismo oscuro "más ligero".

The concept of “Gothic tourism” has recently been proposed within the discipline of English Literature. Such tourism is claimed to be a distinct form of special interest tourism grounded in familiarity with the Gothic, distinctive aesthetics, and experiences of frights and scares. It is increasingly common in towns and cities around the world. This paper aims to examine and critique the concept of Gothic tourism, and consider its similarities with existing forms of urban tourism.

This is a conceptual paper and no empirical data are presented.

Gothic tourism is not as clearly differentiated from other forms of tourism as has been claimed. In particular, Gothic tourism can be conceptualised as a particular form of “lighter” dark tourism, but it can also be considered as a form of literary tourism. A conceptual model is presented which places Gothic tourism at the nexus of dark and literary tourism.

This study is a conceptual exploration of Gothic tourism. Further empirical research is required to test the ideas presented in this paper at established Gothic tourism attractions.

This study examines the recently proposed (but little-researched) concept of Gothic tourism and considers its relationships with other forms of special interest tourism. It also illustrates the broader issue of how typologies of special interest tourism do not necessarily correspond with the motives and experiences of tourists themselves, or of the providers of tourist experiences.

Conventional wisdom holds that the art of dance is strictly and in all its aspects a phenomenon of the moment, something adequately captured by pictorial means only, and not by the written word. Reading and writing are thought to have little or nothing to do with the ephemeral magic of the art of dance. This attitude has its roots in a time before film and video technologies made more possible the vivid preservation of choreography; it also has its roots in a time before the importance of preserving our unique modern dance heritage became fully evident.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore how different stakeholders represent communist and revolution heritage for tourism, with a case-study on Bucharest, the capital city of Romania. The research attempts to identify gaps and tensions between representation makers on communist heritage tourism.

The research employs a range of qualitative methods in order to explore communist heritage tourism representation from different perspectives: content analysis of secondary data in the form of government, industry and media destination promotional material; interviews with a range of representation producers (government, industry and media); focus groups with potential tourists; and content analysis of user generated content under the form of blogs by actual visitors to Bucharest.

Findings reveal that there are gaps between the “official” or government representations of communism and revolution heritage and “unofficial” or industry, media and tourists’ representations. The research confirms and builds on Light’s (2000a, b) views that communist heritage is perceived as “problematic” by government officials and that attempts have been made to reinterpret it in a different light. The process of representation is made difficult by recent trends such as the increase in popularity of communism heritage tourism in countries such as Germany or Hungary. The potential of communist and revolution heritage to generate tourism is increasingly being acknowledged. However, reconciliation with “an unwanted” past is made difficult because of the legacy of communism and the difficulties of transition, EU-integration, economic crisis or countless political and social crisis and challenges. The “official” and “unofficial” representations successfully coexist and form part of the communism and revolution heritage product.

The research attempts to look at the representation of communism heritage from different angles, however, it does not exhaust the number of views and perspectives that exist on the topic. The research only records the British and Romanian perspectives on the topic. The topic is still in its infancy and more research is needed on communism heritage tourism and representation.

The research identifies and explores gaps, agreements and disagreements over the representation of communist and revolution heritage in Bucharest, Romania.

Over the years, dark tourism as a theory has become very heterogenous. It has come to mean a lot of different things, according to the vantage points chosen for analysis. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the research that has been conducted on the topic of dark tourism including what the accepted definitions are, where it originated from, subcategories of the topic, and tourist motivations for visiting such sites. A discussion regarding the role of cultural differences in perceiving the phenomenon of dark tourism is also included. Dark tourist experience is qualitatively different from that of the leisure tourists, and the theories and frameworks available in the extant tourism literature to understand leisure tourism are insufficient to capture its essence. This means, more foundational conceptualisations and radical theory building are called for – rather than incrementally tweaking the existing ones.

The present chapter reviews part of the literature that focuses on dark tourism and dark consumption. The main theories were placed under the critical lens of scrutiny. With strongholds and weaknesses, dark tourism seems to be enframed in an ‘economic-based paradigm’, which prioritises the managerial perspective over other methods. Like Dark Tourist, the Netflix documentary assessed in this chapter, this academic perspective accepts that the tourist's experience is the only valid source of information to understand the phenomenon. Rather, we hold the thesis that far from being a local trend, dark tourism evinces a morbid drive which not only emerges recently but involves other facets and spheres of society. We coin the term Thana-capitalism to denote a passage from risk society to a new stage, where the Other's death is situated as the main commodity to exchange. The risk society as it was imagined by Beck, set finally the pace to thana-capitalism. Dark Tourist proffers an interesting platform to gain further understanding of this slippery matter. In sharp contrast to Seaton, Sharpley or Stone, we argue that dark tourists are unable to create empathy with the victims. Instead, they visit these types of marginal destinations in order to re-elaborate a political attachment with their institutions. They consume the Other's pain not only to feel unique and special (a word that sounds all the time in the documentary) but also to affirm their privileged role as part of the selected peoples.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prospects of Belfast as a Tourism City with a special focus on dark (troubles) tourism.

This paper uses two surveys – one for overseas-based potential tourists and one for Northern Ireland residents; one focus group with potential tourists; and three interviews, one with a Belfast MP and two with tour-guide operators, one from each side of the Northern Ireland divide. This paper is less theoretical than exploratory.

Generally, there is strong and widespread support for the concept of troubles tourism. Stakeholders must ensure that troubles tourism is intelligently and sensitively handled and builds up communities.

This is a relatively new and under-researched area. Belfast has been rarely looked at in urban-tourism studies. Findings have applicability for other post-conflict and divided countries, such as the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Since the last decade, urban heritage tourism has picked up pace in India, specifically through the proliferation of heritage walks. Diversified in their modes of exploration and themes, these walks contribute towards increased awareness and appreciation of cultural heritage. As society reels under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and socio-political problems, heritage walks can become a tool to address issues within the restructured tourism practices. Discussions on sustainable heritage practices in Europe foreground the role that heritage walks play in promoting resilience, responsibility and a sense of shared heritage through the active engagement of various stakeholders. It follows that the digital space offers new opportunities for a more participatory cultural consumption model. Taking cues from Europe and Germany in particular, this study discusses innovative possibilities for inclusive urban heritage tourism practices that integrate urban regeneration, heritage sustainability and community well-being.

This chapter evaluates the extent to which sustainable principles have been included on the destination recovery plans implemented by British Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) in response to COVID-19 and their subsequent quarantines during the period 2020–2021. The aim of the chapter is to explore if this pause in activities created by the COVID-19 crisis was used by UK DMOs as an opportunity to develop sustainable destination management plans, or alternatively, led them to prioritise financial income as the key driver in their recovery. The chapter also identifies the goals, motivations, performance indicators and strategies applied by those DMOs which developed post-COVID tourism destination recovery plans, with particular focus on those which have decided to include sustainability elements in their plans. The chapter concludes by developing a set of principles that other DMOs could apply when intending to develop sustainable management plans for their destinations in response to future major operational disruptions.