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This research investigates the perceived collaboration between public, private, and volunteer organisations during maritime crisis work, with an emphasis on learning and collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to investigate participants’ perceived collaboration training in relation to learning and usefulness.

The exercise studied in this research was run in the far North in Norway. It was estimated by the participants to be Europe’s most extensive exercise in 2016. Mixed methods research approach was applied, i.e. on-site observations, photos and interviews were conducted during the exercise. After the exercise, an online survey was distributed to emergency personnel holding different positions in conjunction with this exercise.

As reported, the exercise contributed to new insights on the relationship between collaboration and learning. The study showed that collaborative elements in exercises contribute to perceived learning (R=0.86, R²=0.74), and that learning in turn had a perceived beneficial effect on actual emergency work (R=0.79, R²=0.62).

The possible research implications from this study include more focus on collaboration and new training schemes that could increase learning and usefulness.

Collaboration between actors seemed to suffer from the size of the exercise. A smaller exercise, less dependency on predetermined scripts, and more receptivity towards improvisation could improve collaboration.

Increased awareness on the outcomes of collaboration exercise might increase their learning and usefulness, providing societies with improved rescue services.

This research implies that increased perceived collaboration has an effect on learning and usefulness in maritime exercises.

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.