T U O M A S H O V I – T U R U N M A T K A I L U A K A T E M I A N 1 0 - V U O T I S S E M I N A A R I

2 5 . 1 0 . 2 0 1 3

DARK TOURISM: FROM AUSCHWITZ TO DRACULA

Hello? I can’t

really speak

right now, I’m

on a trip

and…

”DARK TOURISM”

…I’m in a

pretty bad

place right

now (= in a

tight spot)

FINGERPORI, ©PERTTI JARLA 2007

DARK TOURISM

• Travel to sites of death, disaster or the seemingly macabre (bad places) • Dark tourism, thanatourism

• grief tourism, fright tourism, morbid tourism, black spot tourism, horror tourism, hardship tourism, tragedy tourism, warfare tourism, genocide tourism and extreme thanatourism, disaster tourism, “dark heritage”…

• Dark tourism (synkkä turismi) mostly used • Research phenomenon older (1980s-1990s), but the term

new, introduced in 1996 by Malcolm Foley and John Lennon

• As a phenomenon Dark tourism can however be seen as much older

• Pilgrimages, Pompeii, the battlefield of Waterloo (a tourist site since 1816), Roman gladiator games (?), public executions (?)

DARK TOURISM RESEARCH

• ”Dark Tourism. The Attraction of Death and Disaster”, John Lennon & Malcolm Foley (2000)

• ”The Darker Side of Travel. The Theory and Practice

of Dark Tourism”, Richard Sharpley and Philip R. Stone (eds. 2009)

• Robert S. Bristow, A.V. Seaton, Carolyn Strange,

Michael Kempa

DARK TOURISM RESEARCH

• “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.”

• “Dark tourism offers a multi-disciplinary academic

lens through which to scrutinise a broad range of

social, cultural, geographical, anthropological,

political, managerial, and historical concerns.”

• Philip Stone (2013, 307–309)

• Thanatology (scientific study of death), thanatoptic

tradition (the contemplation of death)

DARK TOURISM RESEARCH

• Issues for investigation and understanding:

• Ethical issues

• Tsunami Memorial project 2006

• Marketing/promoting issues

• Interpretation issues

• Site management issues

DARK TOURISM RESEARCH

• The Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR), based at the University of Central Lancashire (UK). Promotes ethical research into the social scientific understanding of tourist sites of death, disaster, and atrocities, and the tourist experience at these places. Dark tourism is not simply a fascination with death or the macabre, but a multi-disciplinary academic lens in which to scrutinise fundamental interrelationships of the contemporary commodification of death with the cultural condition of society. • http://dark-tourism.org.uk/

DARK TOURISM RESEARCH

DARK TOURISM PLACES

• Auschwitz-Birkenau (concentration camps)

• Killing Fields of Cambodia

• Ground Zero (WTC attacks)

• Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

• Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

• Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre (Rwandan genocide)

• Alcatraz (prisons)

• Battlefield sites (American Civil War, I&II World War)

• Dracula tourism (Whitby & Romania), themed attractions (London Dungeon, Jack the Ripper walks, Ghost walks)

• Cemeteries, places of famous deaths (Diana, JFK)

TEMPORARY PLACES

• the wreck of the Costa

Concordia

• the wreck of SS Morro

Castle (1930)

• ruins of New Orleans

(after Hurricane

Katrina)

• Ground Zero (WTC

attacks)

DARK TOURISM SPECTRUMS

• A typology of dark tourist attractions presented in a

darkest to lightest framework

• Philip R. Stone (2006, 152–157)

• Depend on both the degree of interest or

fascination in death on the part of the tourist, and

on the extent to which an attraction or exhibition is

developed in order to exploit that interest or

fascination,different sites / experiences may be

either ‘paler’or ‘darker’.

• Richard Sharpley (2005)

• Seven dark suppliers – The dark tourism product

• Philip R. Stone (2006, 152-157)

A DARK TOURISM

SPECTRUM:

PERCEIVED

PRODUCT FEATURES

OF DARK TOURISM

WITHIN A ‘DARKEST-

LIGHTEST’

FRAMEWORK OF

SUPPLY, Stone (2006,

151)

‘SEVEN DARK SUPPLIERS’

• 1. Dark Fun Factories

• 2. Dark Exhibitions

• 3. Dark Dungeons

• 4. Dark Resting Places

• 5. Dark Shrines

• 6. Dark Conflict Sites

• 7. Dark Camps of Genocide

1. DARK FUN FACTORIES

• Sites, attractions and tours which predominately have an entertainment focus and commercial ethic, and which present real or fictional death and macabre events • Dungeon attractions,(the

London Dungeon)

• Dracula tourism (planned Dracula Park)

http://www.thedungeons.com/london/en/

2. DARK EXHIBITIONS

• Exhibitions and sites

which revolve around

death, suffering or the

macabre with an often

commemorative,

educational and

reflective message

• Body Worlds’ exhibitions

(Heureka)

• ‘Catacombe dei Cappucini’ in Palermo

3. DARK DUNGEONS

• Sites and attractions

which present bygone

penal and justice

codes to the present

day consumer, and

revolve around

(former) prisons and

courthouses

• Alcatraz

• the Old Melbourne Gaol

• Bodmin Jail

• Robben Island

4. DARK RESTING PLACES

• Cemetery or grave

markers as potential

products for dark

tourism

• St Mary's, Whitby

• Père Lachaise, Paris

Patrick Frilet/Rex Features

5. DARK SHRINES

• Often semi–permanent

sites which essentially

‘trade’ on the act of

remembrance and

respect for the recently

deceased

• The gates of Kensington

Palace/Althorp House

(Princess Diana’s death)

• Ground Zero

6. DARK CONFLICT SITES

• War and battlefields

and their

commodification as

potential tourism

products

• Battle sites

• American Civil War

• First & Second World War

9,000 Fallen Soldiers Etched into

the Sand on Normandy Beach to

Commemorate Peace Day

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2

013/09/the-fallen-9000/

7. DARK CAMPS OF GENOCIDE

• Sites and places which

have genocide,

atrocity and

catastrophe as the

main thanatological

theme, and thus

occupy the darkest

edges of the ‘dark

tourism spectrum’

• Auschwitz-Birkenau (& other Holocaust sites)

• Rwanda, Cambodia

OTHER CATEGORISATIONS

• Travel to witness public enactments of death or

tourism to disaster sites

• Travel to see sites of individual or mass deaths after

they have occurred

• Travel to memorials or internment sites

• Travel to see evidence or symbolic representations

of death at unconnected sites

• Travel to re-enactments or simulation of death

• A.V. Seaton in Richard Sharpley and Philip R. Stone (eds. 2009, 15–16)

Ria Dunkley, 2005

http://pages.123-reg.co.uk/pstone1-

995478/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfil

es/riadunkleypresentationTSeventlondo

noct2006.pdf

OTHER FACTORS

• Time is a factor when defining the ”darkness” of a location • Dark events which possess a shorter time frame to the present,

and therefore can be validated by the living and which evokes a greater sense of empathy, are perhaps products which may be described as ‘darker’

• According to John Lennon & Malcolm Foley in order for something to be dark tourism the events must be recent and it must introduce anxiety and doubt about modernity and its consequences (Lennon & Foley 2000, 11-12)

• Media • News, films, books

• Holocaust, WTC, JFK, Diana (Western media)

• Culture • Ethnocentric

REASONS FOR DARK TOURISM?

• Allows death to be brought back into the public

realm and discourse

• May aid the social neutralisation of death for the

individual tourist

• Gives an opportunity to contemplate death and

mortality

• Tourists can experience horror and be scared in a

safe environment

Reasons for

Dark tourism, Ria Dunkley

2005:

http://pages.1

23-

reg.co.uk/pstone1-

995478/sitebuil

dercontent/site

builderfiles/ria

dunkleypresent

ationTSeventlo

ndonoct2006.p

df

Disaster Tourism,

http://www.disastertourism.co.uk/

CRITICISM

• Offensive?

• Disrespectful?

• Unethical?

• Commercialization

• History as entertainment

• Ethnocentric (Western)

• Auschwitz and Ground Zero worse than The Killing Fields in

Cambodia, the Rwandan Genocide or Hiroshima?

CRITICISM

• “Auschwitz-Land”, the

prime location of

“Holocaust tourism”

• Tim Cole argues that the

true message of

remembrance is obscured by the masses

of tourists who pass

through Auschwitz to

simply consume the

holocaust.

Guillaume Herbaut/Institute pour Télérama

CRITICISM

• “Not everyone agrees

with the idea of the

viewing platforms,

though. Some New

Yorkers say viewing the

ruins of the World Trade

Centre is ghoulish,

while others who live

close to the site say it is

disruptive while they

are trying to get their

lives together.“

• – BBC News

CRITICISM

• Dark tourist or just a tourist?

• Dark tourism, cultural tourism, history tourism or

tourism?

• Is every trip to a place that has connections to

death or disaster dark tourism?

• Depending on the motivations of the tourists?

EXAMPLES FROM DARK TO LIGHTER DARK TOURSIM

• Auschwitz-Birkenau

• Dracula tourism (in Romania)

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

AUSCHWITZ

• Auschwitz-Birkenau

• Concentration and Extermination Camp

1940-1945 (Nazi

Germany)

• 1.1 million victims

• 70-75 000 Poles

• 21 000 Romani

• 15 000 Soviet POWs

• 10-15 000 others

Das Bundesarchiv / Stanislaw Mucha

AUSCHWITZ

• Museum since 1947, UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979 • UNESCO name was

changed in 2007 from "Auschwitz Concentration Camp” to ”Auschwitz Birkenau - German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)”

• 1.43 million people visited the site in 2012 (25 million have visited it since 1947)

AUSCHWITZ

http://en.auschwitz.org/z/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=8

Numbers of people visiting

yearly:

1960: c. 380 000

1970: c. 610 000

1980: c. 650 000

1990: c. 440 000

2000: c. 410 000

2010: c. 1 400 000

http://en.auschwitz.org/z/index.php?option=com_con

tent&task=view&id=56&Itemid=24

AUSCHWITZ

Report 2012. http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=620&Itemid=49

AUSCHWITZ AND MEDIA

• Films

• The Last Stage (Ostatni etap) 1947

• Passenger (Pasażerka) 1963

• Playing For Time 1980

• Schindler's List 1993

• The Grey Zone 2001

• Forgiveness/Esther's Diary 2008

• Auschwitz 2011

• Books, documentaries, comics

• Imagery quite strong

AUSCHWITZ AS DARK TOURISM

• A site that has genocide, atrocity and catastrophe as the main theme

• Travel to see sites of individual or mass deaths after they have occurred

• Events are recent and the site introduces anxiety and doubt about modernity and its consequences

• Media

• Problematic as a tourist site? • 26 rules for Visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and

Museum

• Basic cafe and cafeteria, a coffee machine, bookshop

DRACULA TOURISM (IN ROMANIA)

DRACULA TOURISM

• Tourism which is centred on either the fictional

vampire Count Dracula, or the historical Dracula, a

fifteenth-century Wallachian (southern part of

modern day Romania) ruler called Vlad the Impaler

(c.1431-1476) who was also called Dracula

• In Dracula tourism these two characters are often conflated, or sometimes even melded together, into one Dracula

figure.

• This linkage is artificial and vague at best, but still very much

the basis or the core of Dracula Tourism in Romania

DRACULA TOURISM

• Started (slowly) already in the late 1960’s

• In the 1970’s the demand for Dracula tourism grew

• Dracula tourism was tolerated but not encouraged by the

government

• In the 1980s the number of tourists declined

• After the 1989 revolution Dracula tourism started to

grow again

• the state’s reaction to it remained ambivalent

• Plans for Dracula theme park during the late 1990s:

Dracula Park (abandoned in 2006)

• These days Dracula tourism is operated by different

travel companies, both foreign and Romanian

DRACULA TOURISM

• There is also some Dracula tourism in Great Britain,

but it is solely based on the fictional side of Dracula,

whereas the Dracula tourism in Romania combines

both fiction and history

• In Great Britain the Dracula tourism is mostly

concentrated to the town of Whitby

DRACULA TOURS

• Visit locations connected to the fictitious vampire

Count Dracula, to the historical Dracula Vlad the

Impaler and also some other sites

• Dracula-related tourism stands at about 10,000 –

100,000 visitors a year whereas the whole amount of

tourists coming to Romania (2007) was closer to

6 000,000

• “Romania = Dracula”: Internet, travel books, media etc.

• In 2005, over 20 Romanian travel companies and

also many foreign companies offered packages

based on Dracula’s myth

THE TWO DRACULAS

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

(1879-)

Vlad the Impaler (c.1431-

1476)

FICTIONAL DRACULA

• Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker

• Countless Dracula movies • Nosferatu (1922, 1979)

• Dracula (1931), Bela Lugosi

• Dracula movies produced by Hammer Films starring Christopher Lee (1958-1973)

• Bram Stoker's Dracula (1973), Jack Palance

• Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Gary Oldman

• Books, comics, films, TV-series, (theater) plays, games

DRACULA IN POPULAR CULTURE

Books, Games, Cartoons, Movies, Toys

HISTORICAL DRACULA

• Vlad the Impaler, Vlad

Dracula (c. 1431-1476)

• Wallachian voivode

(prince/ruler)

• Impalement

• Stories

• Romanian

• Russian

• German

• Especially the German

stories, ’horror stories’

VLAD IN POPULAR CULTURE

Toys, Comics, Madame Tussauds, Books, Games,

Movies

CONFLATED DRACULA

DRACULA TOURISM AS DARK TOURISM

• Entertainment, fun, safe

• Transylvania

• Halloween

• Tourists can experience horror and be scared in a safe environment

DRACULA TOURISM AS DARK TOURISM

• Sites, attractions and tours which predominately

have an entertainment focus and commercial

ethic, and which presentreal or fictional death and

macabre events

• Tourists seek a scary opportunity at a destination

that may have sinister history or may be promoted

to have one (Vlad + Dracula)

• Real places of horror and death, but there is enough

chronological distance

• Problematic as a tourist site?

• Local culture, tradition and history?

• Stereotypical (outside) image of a country

DARK TOURISM

• Travel/tourism to places and sites which have some

connection with death or disaster

• World wide phenomenon

• Whether or not every tourist is a ”dark tourist” as

such, there is a clear interest and fascination with

death and disaster also within tourism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Fingerpori, ©Pertti Jarla 2007

• Stone, Philip R. (2006). A dark tourism spectrum: Towards a typology

of death and macabre related tourist sites, attractions and

exhibitions. Tourism 54:2, 145–160.

• Stone, Philip R. & Richard Sharpley (2008). Consuming Dark Tourism: A

Thanatological Perspective. Annals of Tourism Research 35: 2, 574–

595.

• Lennon, John & Malcolm Foley (2004). Dark Tourism. Lontoo:

Thomson.

• Sharpley, Richard & Philip R. Stone (toim.) (2009): The Darker Side of

Travel. The Theory and Practise of Dark Tourism. Bristol: Channel View

Publications

• Sharpley R. (2005) Travels to the edge of darkness: towards a

typology of dark tourism. In: Ryan C., Page S. and Aicken M. (eds)

Taking Tourism to the Limit, London: Elsevier. Chapter 4.

THANK YOU!

QUEST IONS? COMMENTS? CRIT IQUE ?