Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft Band 165/2023, pp. 217-234, 2024/05/21
Band 165 (Jahresband), Wien 2023
Volume 165 (Annual volume), Vienna 2023
The main aim of this article is to examine the relatively new phenomenon of “dark tourism” based on two examples from Thailand. The focus is on the question of how, why and with what consequences certain places associated with death, war or crime have become “tourist commodities”, linking the important issue of (public) commemoration with questions of consumer history. The concept of “consumption” in this context is not limited to goods and/or services, but also encompasses the consumption of historical events such as visiting historical sites like the Thai-Burmese “Death Railway” built by prisoners of war in the central Thai province of Kanchanaburi during World War II, or the more subtle example of villages of the so-called Hill Tribe peoples of northern Thailand with their past as opium traders in the 19th and 20th centuries, exemplified by the Hmong village Doi Pui. To analyse how different tourist groups react to the commercialisation of these sites and how their perceptions differ from one another, both local and foreign tourists as well as local experts were interviewed. Based on the theoretical concepts of “dark tourism” and the “tourist gaze”, the connection between commercialisation, “touristification” and memory is discussed.
Keywords: Dark tourism, touristification, tourist gaze, tourist commodities, commercialisation, hill tribes, tourism, Thailand
