This special issue of Journal of Heritage Tourism on dark tourism aims to encourage and advance theoretical, conceptual, and empirical research on dark tourism. The call for papers was inspired by the editor’s theoretical and research interest in dark tourism studies. The collection of articles in this special issue provides original, innovative and international tourism research that is embedded in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary theoretical and methodological thought in the study of dark tourism. Finally, this editorial will address a few lines of future research directions focusing on the experience and emotions of visitors at ‘dark tourism’ sites.
DOCUMENT
This paper seeks to highlight underlying issues of the tourism system that have led to tourism extremes of too much or too little tourism. Five phases are recognized that reflect different ways of dealing with too much tourism over time, after which the impact of a sudden lack of tourism is investigated in light of future renewal processes. This discussion highlights the remarkable capacity of the tourism industry to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances and crises, even when these cause anguish to individuals and within societies at large. The paper thus seeks to contextualize the current discussions regarding the transformation of tourism post COVID-19. It highlights the complexity of changing a tourism that multiple stakeholders depend on or have grown accustomed to. To come to a more balanced tourism, it is necessary to not only come up with alternative visions and strategies, but also to engage with the political economy nature of tourism development. A future research agenda should therefore also discuss facets of entangled power, social exclusion, inequalities and class differences to come to new reference points of what actually constitutes a more inclusive tourism success.
MULTIFILE
War and conflict are usually seen as major hindrances to travel and tourism. The daily diet of war and conflict stories that have emanated from the second uprising (Intifada), give the impression that the tourism industry is the least likely sector to flourish. This article provides an overview of some of the alternative forms of tourism found in the literature on tourism and attempts to contextualise the form of tourism it is exploring. It starts by setting a definitional context of tourism and political instability, which is followed by visiting alternative tourism and the different forms of it as well as the analysis of tourism industry in Palestine and finally the examination of new forms of tourism in Bethlehem and the surrounded areas.
LINK
