Niche tourism lecture 1

How Many, How much, How Long Where and When

WTO Definition of Tourism Tourism comprises the activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes.

Visitor A “visitor” is defined as those persons who travel to a country other than that in which they have their usual residence but outside their usual environment for a period not exceeding twelve months and whose main purpose of visit is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited.

Term “visitor” covered two distinct classes of traveler Same-day visitors (or) Excursionists ; staying less than 24 hours in the destination visited Tourists ; staying at least 24 hours in the country visited

Economic? Social? Cultural? Please discuss

Can be developed with local products and resources Diversifies the economy Tends to be compatible with other economic activities Spreads development High multiplier impact Increases governmental revenues Benefits of Tourism - Economic- Provides employment opportunities Generates foreign exchange Increases Incomes Increases GNP Can be built on existing infrastructure Develops an infrastructure that will also help stimulate local commerce and industry

Develops excess demand Results in high leakage Creates difficulties of seasonality Causes inflation Can result in unbalanced economic development Increases vulnerability to economic and political changes Disadvantages of Tourism - Economic-

Broadens educational and cultural horizon Improves quality of life - higher incomes and improved standards of living Justifies environmental protection and improvement Provides tourist and recreational facilities that may be used by a local population Benefits of Tourism - Social-

Reinforces preservation of heritage and tradition Visitor interest in local culture provides employment for artists, musicians and other performing artists enhancing cultural heritage Breaks down language barriers, sociocultural barriers, class barriers, racial barriers, political barriers, and religious barriers Creates a favorable worldwide image for a destination Promotes a global community Promotes international understanding and peace Benefits of Tourism - Cultural-

Creates social problems Degrades the natural physical environment and creates pollution Degrades the cultural environment Threatens family structure Commercializes culture, religion, and the arts Creates misunderstanding Creates conflicts in the host society Contributes to disease, economic fluctuation, and transportation problems Disadvantages of Tourism - Socio-cultural-

Investigating the location of special interest tourism The nature of the activities involved Identifying a range of special interest tourism categories Beginning to analyse the motives of people interested in ‘dark tourism’

Regional Tourism – Growth in interest in travel to regions and the major cities within regions, supported by upgrading of transport links and attractions.

Cultural Tourism - Turning visits to arts, sports and other events into a weekend stay or centre-piece of a holiday

Cycle Tourism – Integrating transport links to enable people to tour.

Educational Tourism – for example, l earn a language in the country where it is spoken.

Travelling for Health – The growth and re-birth of s pa and health resorts. Personal well-being becomes the focal point of the tourism experience.

Environmental Tourism - ‘Green’ holiday locations and activities include environmentally-friendly forms of travel as well as visitor locations offering ‘green’ experiences

The Cruise Experience - This sector has seen rapid growth in the past twenty years.

Festivals and Events Tourism - Celebrating global, national and regional festivals and events. Cultural and religious festivals especially popular.

Seniors Tourism - Boosted by increased life expectancy in the developed world and by a general rise in affluence of some senior citizens, the market for ‘grey’ tourism is expanding.

Wine and Food Tourism - Food and wine festivals, journeys through wine and food producing areas. Travel and activity form part of the entire holiday experience.

These categories overlap in many cases. Cycle tourism may involve aspects of ‘green’ tourism, rural tourism, travelling for health and wine and food tourism. It’s helpful to be able to imagine a range of special interest tourism categories, though. One of these that we shall look at now is ‘dark tourism’.

Which dark tourist attraction / site / exhibition did you visit? Where is this dark tourist attraction / site / exhibition located? When did you visit this dark tourist attraction / site / exhibition? Who did you go with? Why did you visit this particular dark tourist attraction / site / exhibition? (Think of the reasons and motivations behind your visit) What was your overall experience and impression of your visit? Would you visit this dark tourist attraction / site / exhibition again in the future?

Part of the human condition is the grim fascination with horror and atrocity. Jack the Ripper’s first Victim – London, Whitechapel's Buck's Row just before four in the morning Friday, August 31, 1888

Visiting sites connected with death:- e.g. murder & death sites, battlefields, cemeteries & homes of dead celebrities has been and still is a significant part of tourist experiences all over the world.

National and regional tourism bodies, voluntary groups and commercial businesses provide the services & facilities to promote, transport and service the visitor at these tourism destinations of ‘celebrated’ sites. Hence the advent of dark tourism.

When did 'tourists' start visiting the ruins of Pompeii?

Observers are unsure how to react to consumers of 'dark tourism' products; should we criticize visitors to areas of Thailand to view the sites devastated by the tsunami in 2004 for their lack of sensitivity? Or should we applaud them for contributing to tourism revenue and the gradual rebirth of these areas?

Alcatraz - once a feared prison, now the most popular tourist attraction in San Francisco!

When I went to Kanchanaburi, Thailand, I was a dark tourist. I had come to see a bridge on the Kwai River, an important link in a wartime railway built by the Japanese known as the Death Railway. In 1942, 60,000 British, Australian, Dutch and American prisoners of war, along with 270,000 conscripted labourers, were shipped in to work on the line. When it was completed 15 months later, it had earned its nickname: More than 13,000 PoWs, 80,000 Asian labourers and 1,000 Japanese and Korean guards died while working in the most appalling conditions imaginable.

Each November, around Remembrance Day, a "sound-and-lights" show with fireworks celebrates the bridge's destruction in 1945

Dark Fun Factories: These are commercially oriented, entertainment centers offering attractions and tours based on actual or fictional death and macabre incidents. Examples of dark fun factories include such family-friendly tourist attractions as the London Dungeon, Tower of London and Jack the Ripper tours . (http://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/) http://www.dark-tourism.org.uk/

Dark Exhibitions: Tourism products that encourage educational reflection on death, suffering or the macabre. They also tend still to have a commercial focus, but are more aimed at commemorating the dark events on exhibition, than entertaining customers.

Dark Dungeons: These are sites that mix entertainment with education ('edu-tainment') as they reveal sites of crime and punishment systems from history. The Galleries of Justice in Nottingham is an example of this type of tourism product, which has been promoted as 'the only site where you could be arrested, sentenced and executed'. Here the emphasis is more on entertainment.

Robben Island, South Africa , where Nelson Mandela, among many other freedom fighters criminalized by the 'apartheid' system, were incarcerated. On Robben Island, where there has only been a short gap between the events that occurred there and the present day, visitors are encouraged to learn about the dangers of a philosophy which was based on the oppression of one group by another. (http://www.robben-island.org.za/))

Dark Shrines: Based on the act of remembrance for the recently deceased. Dark shrines are often located close to or at the scene of a death, and usually within a short period after the incident which led to the death. Roadside tributes of flowers laid to commemorate death through traffic accidents have become increasingly popular in this country. Media-reported deaths of significance for people can also lead to similar informal tributes, as in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Initially non-commercialised, these dark shrines are often relocated and become far more commercially oriented, as in the Diana memorial at Althorp House, near Northampton, England (http://www.althorp.com/house/). Other examples are Ground Zero, New York (site of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, destroyed on what has become known as 9/11).

Questions of taste and sanctity. Ex. The following of the final route of Princess Diana in a black Mercedes S-class through the streets of Paris.

Dark Conflict Sites: War and battlefields fit into this category and their use as tourism sites have been known about for centuries. Tourists are recorded as having visited the scene of the Battle of Waterloo even as it was being fought in 1815. Here, education is mixed with paying respect to those killed in conflict, locating the scene of relatives' deaths, and contemplating the meaning and value of death on a mass scale. But local authorities and entrepreneurs in more recent war zones may envy the business opportunities of commercial gain rather than learning.

Dark Resting Places: Where a cemetery is seen as a potential tourism product. Tours, special interest groups and the spread of the Internet have led to growth in interest in these sites, where the living can feel literally 'close to the dead'. Seen as occupying the 'middle ground' of dark tourism, cemeteries such as Père-Lachaise in Paris (http://www.pere-lachaise.com/perelachaise.php?lang=en ) are used to commemorate the (often very famous) dead, such as Jim Morrison and Isadora Duncan. Other cemeteries also offer open space for recreational activities, exercise and relaxation.

Auschwitz, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, Poland, was a complex of three concentration camps, Auschwitz I for death, II for slave labor, and III for transport. It was the scene of one of the world’s greatest tragedies, the mass genocide of over one million Poles, European Jews, and Roma people (the gypsies) in the darkest years of WWII More than 700,000 people tour Auschwitz every year.

45 000 died on the first day and a further 19 000 during the subsequent four months. Melted Sake Bottles

Student Uniform Akio Tsukuda (13 at the time) was engaged in fire prevention work about 800 meters from the hypocenter. His father found his school uniform hanging on a branch of a tree on August 8, 1945. His body was not found

Aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese City of Hiroshima. Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington DC.

Ethical dilemma for the tourist professional is whose viewpoint is used for the interpretation - viewpoints do change over time.

Anniversaries of events at 5 and 10 years have significance for participants and the media. The 80 th anniversary of the First World War, the 50 th anniversary of the ‘D-day’ landings

What future for the Chernobyl nuclear plant? Scientists believe that more than 90% of the radiation potential from Chernobyl still remains, buried under the steel and concrete sarcophagus. This casing will have to be replaced soon, as the old one is starting to disintegrate. What's left buried amounts to around 190 tonnes of uranium and 1 tonne of plutonium. This part of the site will remain radioactive for an estimated 100,000 years. The Chernobyl legacy will remain for countless generations.

Environmental curiosity Educational insight Evocative sights and sounds Mourning lost cities, towns and villages Grieving for lost loved ones Understanding the legacy of the disaster

It is believed that the Chernobyl disaster area 'attracts' in excess of 3,000 people every year. Is this travel and tourism activity ethically correct? What are the motivations of these consumers of 'dark tourism'? What benefits are to be gained from increasing tourist activity in the region?

Choeung Ek commemorative stupa filled with skulls

Ground zero in New York has become one of the most-visited dark-tourism sites in the world, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, many on organized tours of 9/11 sites.

What is the appropriate chronological distance between the event and the arrival of visitors at the site?

How long will it be before all types of suffering is commodified for touristic consumption – who will define the boundaries of good and bad taste?

Is it acceptable to visit death sites immediately following the event to show respect .

What takes longer to be acceptable is the creation of a ‘touristic’ experience - interpretation for consumption by tour groups.

Choose one of the Seven Dark Suppliers of Dark Tourism products listed above. Describe why you think people are attracted to visiting the site. If you were to arrange travel for people interested in visiting the site you've chosen, what infrastructure and superstructures would you be able to use? (For example, transport, accommodation, visitor centers and so on).

Niche tourism lecture 1

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Niche tourism lecture 1