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1 – 10 of 405Raynald Harvey Lemelin, Kyle Powys Whyte, Kelsey Johansen, Freya Higgins Desbiolles, Christopher Wilson and Steve Hemming
The purpose of this paper is to examine the omission of Indigenous narratives in battlefields and sites of conflicts while also highlighting how certain battlefields and sites of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the omission of Indigenous narratives in battlefields and sites of conflicts while also highlighting how certain battlefields and sites of conflicts have attempted to address dissonant heritage by diversifying interpretation strategies and implementing elements of collaborative management approaches, thereby addressing Indigenous erasure.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a content analysis, field studies and case studies to examine dissonant heritage in warfare tourism sites involving Indigenous peoples in Australia and North America.
Findings
The content analysis reveals that aboriginal erasure is still prevalent within the literature on warfare and battlefield tourism. However, the case studies suggest that dissonant heritage in warfare tourism is being addressed through collaborative management strategies and culturally sensitive interpretation strategies.
Research limitations/implications
The content analysis is limited to tourism journals. The case studies highlight sites that are using adaptive management and integrating Indigenous peoples.
Practical implications
The study of dissonant heritage and warfare tourism, while relatively young, is beginning to address aboriginal erasure and cultural dissonance; this study is a contribution to this area of research.
Social implications
Addressing the impacts of aboriginal erasure and heritage dissonance in colonial settings heals the hurts of the past, while empowering communities. It also provides Indigenous communities with opportunities to diversify current tourism products.
Originality/value
This is a collaborative international paper involving Indigenous and non‐Indigenous scholars from Australia, Canada, and the USA.
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Keywords
Commonly referred to as dark tourism or thanatourism, the act of touristic travel to sites of or sites associated with death and disaster has gained significant attention with…
Abstract
Purpose
Commonly referred to as dark tourism or thanatourism, the act of touristic travel to sites of or sites associated with death and disaster has gained significant attention with media imaginations and academic scholarship. However, despite a growing body of literature on the representation and tourist experience of deathscapes within the visitor economy, dark tourism as a field of study is still very much in its infancy. Moreover, questions remain of the academic origins of the dark tourism concept, as well as its contribution to the broader social scientific study of tourism and death education. Thus, the purpose of this invited review for this Special Issue on dark tourism, is to offer some critical insights into thanatourism scholarship.
Design/methodology/approach
This review paper critiques the emergence and current direction of dark tourism scholarship.
Findings
The author suggests that dark tourism as an academic field of study is where death education and tourism studies collide and, as such, can offer potentially fruitful research avenues within the broad realms of thanatology. Secondly, the author outlines how dark tourism as a conceptual typology has been subject to a sustained marketization process within academia over the past decade or so. Consequently, dark tourism is now a research brand in which scholars can locate a diverse range of death‐related and tourist experience studies. Finally, the author argues that the study of dark tourism is not simply a fascination with death or the macabre, but a multi‐disciplinary academic lens through which to scrutinise fundamental interrelationships of the contemporary commodification of death with the cultural condition of society.
Originality/value
This review paper scrutinises dark tourism scholarship and, subsequently, offers original insights into the potential role dark tourism may play in the public representation of death, as well as highlighting broader interrelationships dark tourism has with research into the social reality of death and the significant Other dead.
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Felicity Cheal and Tony Griffin
The purpose of this paper is to explore the Australian tourist experience at Gallipoli in order to better understand how tourists approach and engage with battlefield sites and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the Australian tourist experience at Gallipoli in order to better understand how tourists approach and engage with battlefield sites and how the experience may transform them. Specific attention is paid to the role of interpretation in shaping these experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research method was employed, involving in‐depth interviews with Australians who had visited Gallipoli in a range of circumstances.
Findings
Australians visit Gallipoli for a variety of reasons, including national sentiment and personal connections. They engage with the site in a range of highly personal ways, with guides playing a crucial role in helping them to connect with the site physically, intellectually and emotionally.
Research limitations/implications
The study relied on the participants recalling their experiences from some years past, although other research suggests that this is a minimal problem in the context of such memorable and moving experiences.
Practical implications
The paper provides valuable insights into how tourists experience battlefield sites of great national significance, and consequently how such sites should be managed sensitively and unobtrusively.
Originality/value
This research provides empirical support to conceptual studies on how tourists engage with battlefield tourism sites, and specifically explores the role of interpretation in shaping the overall experience. It further considers the ongoing effects of such experiences.
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Raynald Harvey Lemelin, Michel S. Beaulieu and David Ratz
The purpose of this paper is to retrace past developments that occurred in the Alaskan and Canadian North as of result of the Second World War and illustrate the ramifications of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to retrace past developments that occurred in the Alaskan and Canadian North as of result of the Second World War and illustrate the ramifications of these events in the Canadian and American political landscapes as it pertains to warfare tourism. The paper also intends to initiate a discussion on how certain narratives pertaining to warfare tourism are promoted, while others are overlooked.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyses the political, economic, socio-cultural and technological factors that resulted in tourism growth or the lack thereof in the Canadian and American Norths.
Findings
Warfare tourism, like most types of tourism, is expected to grow. Through this growth comes opportunities to expand and integrate the discussion pertaining to warfare tourism in the Canadian and American Norths while also providing a starting point for discussion about potential solutions to address warfare tourism and cultural dissonance.
Research limitations/implications
This viewpoint is dependent on literature reviews.
Practical implications
The relationship between Indigenous peoples and other marginalized populations in the Second World War and warfare tourism is a relatively new research area. For warfare tourism to become integrated into tourism policies and developments, a willingness to address cultural dissonance and integrate populations formerly marginalized in the Second World War will be required. This paper examines how northern and other marginalized voices can be integrated in future commemoration and interpretation strategies.
Social implications
The paper provides an opportunity to examine the growth and healing that can result from warfare tourism.
Originality/value
This interdisciplinary collaboration conducted by a military historian, a northern historian and a tourism research researcher provides one of the first examinations of the impacts of the Second World War in North America, and the relevance of these impacts to the interpretation of warfare tourism in Canada.
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Hande Akyurt Kurnaz and Ayşen Acun Köksalanlar
In this chapter, we plan to describe the effects of war on tourism. Battlefield tourism was discussed within the effects of War on tourism. It is aimed to analyse the wars in…
Abstract
In this chapter, we plan to describe the effects of war on tourism. Battlefield tourism was discussed within the effects of War on tourism. It is aimed to analyse the wars in world history and the consequences of these wars. War is a modern security problem with long-term severe consequences engraved on society. Wars, on any ground, always impact people's memories and activities (Smith, 1998). Wars leave their mark on society and are among the never forgotten events in history (Aliağaoğlu, 2008). Some of these events end with victory, while others end sadly. Wars affect tourism both positively and negatively. This chapter is essential to identify the contribution of tourism in battlefields, a different type of tourism, to the countries. In the context of battlefield tourism, this chapter will present a framework. It attempts to explain battlefield tourism through case studies. Document review and case study methods will be used. It is assumed that this chapter will bring the battlefields to tourism.
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Andreas Mölk, Manfred Auer and Mike Peters
Tourism employment is very diverse ranging from precarious, exploitative study to high-quality workplaces. However, poor employment images dominate the tourism industry, which…
Abstract
Purpose
Tourism employment is very diverse ranging from precarious, exploitative study to high-quality workplaces. However, poor employment images dominate the tourism industry, which makes attracting employees difficult. This study aims to examine the processes that lead to such image construction.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a qualitative methodology, the study develops a multilevel framing cycle comprising a media analysis of newspapers and magazines (macro-level), a conversation analysis of peer communication/negotiations (meso-level) and a content analysis of single employee/manager interviews (micro-level); and a comparative analysis of the macro-, meso- and micro-level findings.
Findings
The multilevel frame cycle identifies image-construction processes that pass through working conditions, payment, seasonality and human resource problems. These processes are shaped by the two cross-level dynamics of radicalization and attenuation. The latter consists of rationalized and repressed framings of tourism employment images (TEI) and the former consists of ideological and emotional framings.
Practical implications
Tourism stakeholders should support and participate in a pragmatic and open dialog to overcome the radicalization and attenuation of tourism employment. The key players require a new deal to end the “information warfare” on tourism employment, inaugurating a new era of collaborative and constructive employment relations.
Originality/value
This study develops a holistic and dynamic understanding of TEI by exploring how media products, peer groups and employees/managers jointly construct these images. It demonstrates how attenuation and radicalization shape poor employment images in tourism. It argues that these dynamics “lock in” the status-quo, create mutual recrimination between employers and employees and counteract common strategies that could otherwise improve employment structures and the image of tourism.
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Victoria Mitchell, Tony L. Henthorne and Babu George
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…
Abstract
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.
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R. H. Lemelin and Kelsey Johansen
The purpose of this article is to expand the discussion pertaining to Vimy beyond traditional historic and military circles and to illustrate that the site is a significant tourism…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to expand the discussion pertaining to Vimy beyond traditional historic and military circles and to illustrate that the site is a significant tourism attraction featuring evolving management and interpretation approaches. This is achieved by describing the commemoration of First World War sites and the evolution and transformation of visitor typologies at these sites. The conversation is framed within a discussion of the role of heritage dissonance in management. Since this article was written at the onset of the centennial of the Great War, an examination of the management of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, which includes a tourism perspective, is timely.
Design/methodology/approach
Consisting of participation observations and a review of literature, documentation, government reports and Web sites describing the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, this analysis is complemented by site visits and discussions with key personnel involved in the management of the site.
Findings
Because this article precedes the upcoming centennial of the Great War, an examination of the management of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, which includes a tourism perspective, is timely. The discussion and conclusion sections provide a suggestion of how dissonant heritage can be addressed, and present an argument for the inclusion of new technologies in the management and interpretation of First World War memorials and the celebrations associated with the centennial of 2014-2019 in order to embrace new visitor types.
Research limitations/implications
This is a conceptual paper examining past and current management strategies of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. No participants or manager was interviewed or surveyed.
Practical implications
Strategies to improve future management through the engagement of tourism researchers, new technologies and by addressing dissonant heritage are provided through literature review and on-site visits.
Social implications
Currently, the management of the Vimy Memorial caters largely to a certain segment of Canadian population. The findings suggest that by addressing other components of Canadian society and even other combatants, the management and interpretation of the site could be greatly diversified and could eventually become a battlefield like Gettysburg or Gallipoli, where all combatants are recognized and honored.
Originality/value
This is the first paper examining the management of the Vimy Memorial from a tourism perspective.
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