First Look: Dark Tourism Documentary

13th February 2017

There’s nowt so queer as folk” as the saying goes.

In a new documentary coming this May 2017, final year USW (University South Wales – Cardiff), Chris Lloyd examines the phenomena of Dark Tourism. Yes, there are people who actually travel around sites of mass murders like the site of Fred and Rosemary’s West now demolished house – 25 Cromwell Street, taking photographs etc. “A strange curiosity” is the term used in the pilot of the documentary. Also, briefly touched upon is a man who runs a suicide bus in Bridgend as the town has the dubious notoriety of having the highest number of suicides in Wales.

It may be a strange curiosity but then we visit historical sites of mass murders and suicides there are even plaques to commemorate them. What makes that different to the suicide bus in Bridgend, maybe it’s the passage of time? Hopefully this and more will be revealed when the full documentary is release later this year, May 2017.

The pilot is certainly intriguing.

Dark tourism (also black tourism or grief tourism) has been defined as tourism involving travel to places historically associated with death and tragedy. More recently, it was suggested that the concept should also include reasons tourists visit that site, since the site’s attributes alone may not make a visitor a “dark tourist”. Thanatourism, derived from the ancient Greek word thanatos for the personification of death, refers more specifically to peaceful death; it is used in fewer contexts than the terms dark tourism and grief tourism. The main attraction to dark locations is their historical value rather than their associations with death and suffering.

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