An Investigation into Ethical Management within Scottish Dark Tourism
Citation
(2015) An Investigation into Ethical Management within Scottish Dark Tourism, no. 69.
Abstract
The aim of this dissertation is to gain a clear understanding of the current ethical issues
regarding dark tourism, and the ways in which Scottish dark tourism businesses acknowledge
and address them. The paper seeks to understand what exactly constitutes ethical dark tourism.
The primary research was conducted, focusing on Scottish dark tourism businesses. A
qualitative research method was used, in the form of semi-structured, one to one interviews.
The findings were then manually coded, for analysis and discussion.
The results indicate that certain dark tourism businesses do act unethically, and exploit the
subject of death and suffering, in order to be profitable. Furthermore, some businesses were
found to disregard authenticity and historical accuracy within their dark tourism product.
Interestingly, the term dark tourism itself was found to spark the most debate and interest within
the study. All interviewees agreed that the umbrella term could be considered confusing,
disrespectful and to incorporate too many forms of attraction, and therefore did not like to
associate their business with the term. It is therefore recommended that the term be
disregarded, and instead broken down into other terms such as: Grief tourism, Social-history
tourism, Entertainment-based dark tourism and Supernatural tourism
It is hoped that the findings form this study, will encourage dark tourism businesses to consider
their ethos and ethical consideration in addressing social responsibility. Furthermore, the study
may encourage further academic study into dark tourism, as, although the term is widely
researched, it is rarely applied into the practical industry of tourism. In order to gain a deeper
understanding of the issue, a much wider study is advised, in order to analyse darker
destinations and their approach to ethics.