Internet resources
Again, like with
films and
books, I can only be very selective here – and provide just a small selection of dark-tourism-related websites:
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www.dark-tourism.org.uk … this is THE forum of dark tourism in academia; also interesting for practitioners and the tourism industry. The site has recently been updated and completely redesigned, namely to coincide with the launch of the first dedicated institute for dark tourism research, the
iDTR (institute for Dark Tourism Research) in April 2012. The new website is flashier and more colourful, compared to the old one, but in my view also a bit restricted still (lots of 'under construction' pages where nothing seems to be happening), and in some respects offering less than the previous version (e.g. under resources there's no longer a bibliography but just a copy of a flyer made for the launch conference). I'm sure the site will be expanded and improved over time – I will check back now and then and will post comments here – so watch this space. What the
iDTR site is especially good at is addressing the issue of media coverage: they attack head-on the often ill-informed "moral panic" in the media when it comes to dark tourism – and they offer active consultation for media partners, so that they can get their act right. This seems to be working increasingly well: links to online articles and TV programmes posted through the
iDTR's mailing list have recently shown a much better balance … clearly thanks in part to the media consultation work by the institute's director Phil Stone. (See also
other sources: books!)
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www.grief-tourism.com – articles about an eclectic selection of dark-tourism places, of quite variable quality, not a lot has seemed to be going on here for a couple of years now ...
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http://traumatourism.wordpress.com/ - has a fairly long list of dark-tourism places with very short articles and occasional comments (it's a kind of blog), fairly wide-reaching but lacking informational depth.
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www.thecabinet.com/darkdestinations – the title promises a dark tourism travel guide, and it is referenced as that in books like
Sharpley/Stone (2009) (who probably didn't take a close enough look), BUT: this site only has a random few proper dark tourism sites (
Chernobyl, for instance, or the
Sixth Floor Museum), but is far more swamped with mysterious "haunted" sites, film sets and such like (see
paranormal and
fictional sites under
beyond dark tourism), and seems to be targeted more at a primarily North American (teenage?) audience, rather than truly an international dark tourism one of adult travellers.
- http://web.mac.com/jsdart/Site/Dark_tourism.html – a photo site including many images I wouldn't have dared uploading to this site. The spelling of place names is atrocious, though – don't try and use them for reference.
--- update July 2012: this site now appeares to have been closed!!!
- www.darktourism.net – also apparently no longer active (nothing there when I last checked), but it may come back … it was a site with a cool dark design and an eclectic collection of articles on rather randomly selected dark tourism sites of a semi-academic nature.
In due course I will expand this short list … but in general I recommend you stay on this website, especially if it is
practical information about the dark travel destinations that you are interested in, not so much isolated media snippets or the academic heaviness of theory (but see
the concept of dark tourism).
