Understanding Tourist Motivation Concerning the Term Dark Tourism with a Focus on Alcatraz

Understanding tourist motivation concerning the term dark tourism with a focus on Alcatraz

Table of Content

1. Introduction 3

2. Abstract 4

3. The definition & development of dark tourism 5

4. The different types of Dark Tourism 6

4.1. Holocaust Tourism 6

4.2. Battlefield tourism 6

4.3. Cemetery Tourism 7

4.4. Slavery-Heritage Tourism 7

4.5. Prison tourism 7

5. Motivation factors vary from person to person. 7

5.1. Belonging to a particular community and education 7

5.2. Concept of Schadenfreude 8

5.3. Condolence and Valediction 8

5.4. Thanatopsis 9

6. Motivation and Influencing factors towards visiting Alcatraz 9

7. The island Alcatraz and its development 10

8. Alcatraz, the transformation from a high security prison to a tourist destination 11

9. Conclusion 12

10. List of references 13

1. Introduction

Subject of the paper

Tourism is one of the fastest moving industries worldwide with an annual growth rate of 6.5%. The number of people and the demand in visiting extraordinary places is rising continually. Dark tourism was initiated when humans started to pilgrim to tombs and sites of religious martyrdom. This triggered the interest in the ending of life and human started to investigate tourism sites which are connected to death. This paper addresses the issue of travel motivation concerning dark tourism, especially for the destination “Alcatraz”.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the incentive why tourists pilgrim to dark tourism sites. The aim of the thesis is to analyse the travel motivation to visit sites where people died a horrible death or where crimes were committed. Moreover the reader gains an insight in the vicious world of Alcatraz and what makes it so special that more than 1 million people are attracted annually.

Organisation of the paper

The organisation of the paper will be as follows; the first section of the thesis explains the term dark tourism and additionally gives a short overview of the development that the