Bibliography for Dark Tourism

This project will contribute to the current literature on Ghost Tourism by unveiling the typical demographics and motives for ghost tourists that visit the Tranquille tunnels in Kamloops, BC. The analysis of this data may help provide a working foundation of knowledge for ghost tourism marketers and promoters. To collect data, tourists visiting the Tranquille tunnels will be surveyed following their Tranquille Farm Fresh tunnel tour. Through the collection and analysis of this data, a further understanding of the motives of each demographic for ghost tourism should be acquired. This will not only help future scholars and academics whom may wish to further progress this topic, but also current ghost tourism businesses and marketers to better understand their clients and the potential for ghost tourism.

This paper addresses ghost tourism as a type of dark tourism, which will help link ghost tourism with dark tourism in my project. From interviewing ghost tourism managers and observing two ghost tours, Garcia has concluded that Ghost tours appear to have an educational component, however their main objective is entertainment as a commercial activity. This conclusion will help place ghost tourism as a “lighter” form of dark tourism on Stone’s Dark Tourism Spectrum.

In this paper, Stones creates a “Dark Tourism Spectrum”, which places dark tourism products on a dark-light scale based of various features and attributes. The supply for dark tourism is categorized into 7 different types. This framework will assist in the identification of the “types” of dark tourists within one of these product types (Dark Resting Place). This article will also contribute to my project since it provides a description of the “type” of dark tourism that the Tranquille tunnel tours would fall under (from Seaton). This is a very important in my project, since both Stone’s Dark Tourism Spectrum framework and Seaton’s description of a Dark Resting Plaza as a “type” of dark