“Dark or Grief Tourism” is a different type of tourist attraction.

 Imagine you are in Paris and your guide is telling you, that there is a new site  to visit in the city, the “Pere Lachaise Cemetery” …. What would you do? Would you go? or  Would you think is  for crazy people ….

In fact, millions of travelers worldwide, when  they are in certain countries or cities for holidays,  they feel the urge to visit certain places: cemetery, a museum of horror, the exact spot where a celebrity  died, the site where they carried out an attack, a death camp, ….   What reasons lead us to this kind of tourism?

Experts define the 'dark tourism or grief tourism' as the fascination or curiosity may feel ordinary people to visit places associated with death. It has nothing to do with mental or hidden perversions…. (good news¡¡  my favorite place is the Jewish Cemetery in Prague …)  and I would also say it is a Lucrative Travel Industry ¡ 

25 Top Dark Tourism Destinations: (2014)

And what we have to remember is that it is a new way of tourism, we have to adapt our facilities to make it easier for our clients to enjoy their stay.  By this I mean that our marketing campaign has to be directed to Dark Tourism, if we are in Cambodia we should give instructions to our future clients with, the history of the site, routes, weather, injuries, etc…

 
Currently, Dark Tourism area is under-researched and the Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR) hopes to become a global 'hub' of research on the subject. It will also help those who manage and promote dark tourism sites and exhibitions.

Some places for this type of tourism:

·         Ground Zero, site of the former World Trade Center twin buildings

·         Nazi death camps, where six million people died

·         Crash sites, such as Lockerbie in Scotland, where a TWA jumbo jet was blown up in 1988

·         The Paris tunnel in which Princess Diana was killed in 1997 being chased by paparazzi

·         Cambodia's killing fields (Choeng Ek Extermination Camp), mass graves for some 20,000 Cambodians murdered during the Khmer Rouge genocide of the late 1970s

·         Central Park's Strawberry Fields memorial to John Lennon, who was assassinated nearby outside the Dakota in 1980

·         Most Cemeteries, including Arlington in the US and the Père Lachaise in Paris. There is an Association to  promote European cemeteries as a fundamental part of the heritage of the humanity. To raise European citizen awareness of the importance of significant cemeteries.

     Association European Cementeries

·         Soham, a small English town, where two 10-year-olds were kidnapped and murdered by their school caretaker

·         Hiroshima in Japan, where the first atomic bomb was dropped

·         Chernobyl, where tour guides use geiger counters to test radiation while escorting visitors

·         The Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam, in memory of a 13-year-old Jewish schoolgirl who kept a diary while hiding from the Nazis

·         Hitler's mountain residence at Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Alps

·         Normandy (France): The Alabaster Coast has beautiful scenery can be admired widely, but are ignored by the strong attraction of the twenty-seven cemeteries that bear witness to the battle that took place at the site. Bunkers standing still remembering the picture looked decisive Allied victory.

·         In London, routes of Jack the Ripper, who try to create the atmosphere of the city sordid Dickens.

·         The tunnels of Cu Chi, relict of the Vietnam War are a vast underground network that was used by the Vietnamese resistance in the bloody war. For a few hours, thousands of visitors to this attraction located near the capital relive the claustrophobic life of the soldiers of the Viet Cong or can exercise their aim with a "real" AK47.

Highwire - London

Dark Tourism Site

BBC News

Blog: Cementerio Modernista Lloret de Mar - España 

Milano- Italy

This type of tourism has supporters and detractors. The first claim that it is a new concept which motivates visitors tours to the monuments, while encouraging the preservation of spaces that keep an important historical, artistic and social.

And critics who reject this new form of tourism argue that visitor arrivals could damage the burial and other sites, as well as  it will be the end of a protected area.

Recoleta - Buenos Aires 

See you next week, Susana