The University of
Central Lancashire is set to launch an academic research center for dark
tourism. Dark Tourism entails visitors travelling to death, brutality and
terror sites. The institute for Dark Tourism is set to launch Tuesday and argued
to be the first of its kind in the world.
A BBC source quoted the Director, Dr Phillip Stone saying that such
places make people face their own ‘mortality.’ The ETN (E-Turbo News), a global travel industry news website, quoted Dr. Stone
referring to viable places for dark tourism
such as the 9/11 site in New York, Nazi concentration camps and sites of disasters such as the
Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine. Further Dr. Stone indicates, “Going to
such places becomes a form of “secular pilgrimage” with people feeling they
need to visit them.”
Dr. Stone an academic, there before worked in
the tourism industry and argues that dark tourism has had a long history citing
Medieval Executions as earlier forms
of dark tourism.
In other words, in a
Kenyan perspective, dark tourists interests would be the 1998 Bomb Blast
Memorial site, President Kenyatta Mausoleum, the Sachangwan Tanker accident victims
burial site, Kiambaa church burning just to name a few in much respect to
the victims.
According to ETN, more than 100 delegates from
around the world are expected to attend the inaugural symposium at the
university.
