Geografie 2025, 130, 93-114
Dark tourism: Research on traveling to the sites of tragedies
1Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of Geography, Brno, Czechia
2Masaryk University, Faculty of Science, Department of Geography, Brno, Czechia
Received November 2024
Accepted March 2025
The term dark tourism, as well as the related terms thanatourism and dissonant heritage, emerged among Western European scholars in 1996, when a wider discussion about traveling to places of tragedies was sparked. That discussion has since evolved significantly. The objectives of the study were, first, to define dark tourism and, second, to present various typologies. Currently, there are many research topics that are quite critical of the previous debate. In contrast, the topic of dark tourism still remains marginal in the Czech and Slovak context. The aim of the article is to compare global and Czecho-Slovak discussions on dark tourism; Czech and Slovak studies are often overly descriptive and lack theoretical ambition. The secondary goal is to stimulate discourse in the local context, which can enrich the global discussion with the perspective of the global East or can shift the focus to topics possibly important in the future – for example, a greater focus on visitors and specific visitor groups.
Keywords
dark tourism, thanatourism, dissonant heritage, research topics, Czechia, Slovakia.
Funding
This article was written with the support within project Dynamics of the natural and social environment in geographical perspective (MUNI/A/1648/2024). I would also like to thank to Strategies to Support Publishing and Research at the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University for granting funds for publication.
