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While there have been several quantitative studies about potential motivations for space tourism, there is a lack of qualitative research which explores these motivations in greater scope and depth. This chapter, based on the data gathered from face-to-face, telephone, and online interviews of potential space tourists, identifies nine likely motivations for space tourism, with hedonic examples such as thrill-seeking or risk-taking; eudaimonic examples such as challenge, curiosity, spirituality, and nostalgia; and extrinsic cases such as seeking distinction or a desire to motivate and assist others. Suggestions are made for marketing future space tourism experiences, as well as recommendations for succeeding research.

This chapter examines the historical development of space tourism from early wondering at the heavens to more recent extraterrestrial astrotourism. It catalogs the development of the significant terrestrial space tourism market, including dark-sky tourism, launch tours, zero-G flights, and edutainment experiences, as part of a “steps to space” for costlier future developments in space tourism. Recent developments in the suborbital sector initiated by the XPRIZE and spearheaded by Virgin Galactic are the next stage in this product ladder. All these draw on a rich history of space exploration – imagined, virtual, and real – that frames how future developments in space tourism can be viewed.

Three myths of life on other celestial bodies are examined as potential motivators for space tourism. The historical myth of extraterrestrial planetary life was debunked by modern astronomy. The twentieth-century myth-like belief in the existence of stellar civilizations or extraterrestrial intelligence has engendered an extensive search for transmitted signals from such civilizations, but none have yet been detected. The post-modern myth of aliens visiting the Earth by unidentified flying objects, engendered new religious movements; however, it is silent about the aliens’ stellar origins, while the new religions do not encourage adherents to visit the aliens’ abodes. In the final analysis, none of the three myths offers an incentive for space travel and tourism.

Hanfu has been the Han ethnic costume in Chinese history. This study explores the travel motivation and experience of Hanfu tourists by conducting qualitative research on Hanfu tourists through photo-elicitation interviews with 25 participants covering four study regions, including the mainland of China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore. The results reveal seven motivations drive Hanfu tourists: (1) personal hobby, (2) seeking cultural identity, (3) social belonging, (4) Hanfu tourist photography, (5) career need, (6) influence on Hanfu movement, and (7) free space for wearing Hanfu created by tourism. Additionally, the seven types of Hanfu tourist experiences are (1) social experience, (2) cultural experience, (3) Hanfu performance experience, (4) nonvisual sensual experience, (5) learning experience, (6) challenge experience, and (7) pilgrimage experience. This study further furnishes theoretical and managerial implications as a reference for destination marketing targeting Hanfu tourists.

The chapter presents the gospel festival as a significant postmodern religious tourism phenomenon which has not thus far been recognized or critically theorized. To date, conceptualizations of religious tourism, specifically pilgrimages, have been dominated by Turnerian concepts of liminality and communitas. It is suggested that these concepts, while valuable, do not sufficiently account for the heterogeneous and contested nature of these event spaces or their potentiality for the performance of alternative modes of social ordering. The Foucauldian notion of heterotopia is adapted as a more apposite theoretical framework and an example of a gospel festival in Australia is drawn on by way of explication.

The present book chapter deals with the problem of dark tourism as well as the resilience forms of consumption in post-disaster context.

The turn of the century characterised a radical change in the forms of tourism consumption. New forms of tourism as dark or thana tourism have captivated the attention of scholars and journalists. This book chapter centres efforts in dillucidating what are the key factors that determine the formation of a dark site. The text is inspired in my own ethnographies in Cromañon, Argentina and the Ground Zero, US.

As Phillip Stone puts it, not all dark shrines or sites welcome tourists. While some sites are reluctant to mass tourism, others are mainly organised around the figure of the tourist. La Republica de Cromañón is a night club where in a fire died 194 young. The site is today refurbished as a sanctuary to remind the victims. At a closer look, there is a tension between stakeholders at the time of promoting dark tourism in Cromañón. In the opposite the ground zero is fully designed to be visited by thousands tourists.

The originality of this research consists in the contraposition of two study cases which answer the question to what extent dark tourism is desired by locals. The findings lay the foundations towards the specialised literature in dark tourism studies. We discuss critically the nature of thanatopsis.