The dark tourism

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Presentation of the Problem

Tourism covers numerous forms of travel and a broad range of destinations. Dark Tourism describes a niche type of tourism which covers the visitation of places where tragedies or historically noteworthy deaths have occurred of institutions dealing with the heritage of humanity (Tarlow, 2005). Especially in the last decades, dark tourism has become seemingly more popular and has received more attention (Stone, 2009). Foley and Lennon (1999) state that tourism associated with sites of death is registering a rapid growth. Smith (1996) found in her research on war and tourism that the memorabilia of warfare and allied products probably forms the largest single category of tourist attractions in the world, despite the tragedies and dissuasive incidents which have happened there. One of the earliest examples of dark tourist sites in the beginning of the 19th century was a jailhouse in the United States of America, which received public interest because of its architectural innovations and novel practices (Stone, 2009).

Meanwhile, visiting sites of death and disaster has developed into a worldwide phenomenon. But the demand for dark tourism spots is versatile. Beside the matter of death, interest in culture, history or simply the desire for entertainment are possible reasons why millions of people are visiting places of dark tourism (Stone, 2006). Despite an increasing amount of studies on the topic (Seaton, 1996; Lennon and Foley, 2000; Sharpley and Stone, 2009) there is still a lack of understanding what actually motivates humans to visit sites of dark tourism and to engage themselves with the topics of death, disaster and genocide. Due to the fact that dark tourism is a growing form of tourism, it is necessary to understand why people are motivated to visit places where other people have suffered.

Aims of the Bachelor Thesis

The purpose of this study is to identify the motives of visitors visiting former battlefields where historically important battles have been fought. This study will give a better, theoretically informed understanding of tourist motivation and its role in the decision making process. The following questions will be examined in regards to this topic:

1. Which push factors play a role in visitors´ motivation to battlefields?
2. Which pull factors play a role in visitors´ motivation?
3. What role do particularly level of education, interest in history, media and personal connection play in visitors´ motivation?
4. Which other visitor motives influence the decision to visit battlefields?

Methodology

Structure of the Thesis

This Bachelor Thesis is divided into a theoretical and an empirical part. The goal of the theoretical part is to provide and explain the theories, terms and definitions used in this study to form a thorough literature review to review literature for designing the research and interpreting the findings.

Dark Tourism

Definition of Dark Tourism

Lennon and Foley described the term dark tourism as "...the phenomenon which encompasses the presentation and consumption (by visitors) of real and commodified death and disaster sites" (1996:198). An example of very early forms of dark tourism would be the gladiatorial games of the Roman area or public executions in medieval age (Stone, 2009). Boorstin (1964, in Stone 2009) states that the first organised tour in England in 1838 was a trip by train to witness the hanging of two murderers.

Dark tourism sites and attractions are not only becoming more and more popular (Sharpley, 2005) but also vary enormously in their presentation of death. They reach from jocular houses of horror, over death sites of famous people to places of mass murder like the Holocaust death camps. Seaton (1996) cites a number of attractions, including the battlefield of Waterloo and the buried city of Pompeii; the latter is said to be the greatest and most famous thanatoptic travel destination of the Romantic period (Seaton, 1996).

In contrast to Stone, Seaton prefers using the definition "thanatourism" instead of dark tourism. He describes thanatourism as being the "...travel to a location wholly, or partially, motivated by the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death, particularly, but not exclusively, violent death, which may, to a varying degree be activated by the person-specific features of those whose deaths are its focal objects" (1996:240). This would mean that people, travelling to dark sites, are active going there in order to experience the aura of such places. In addition to this, he believes that thanatourism is defined by the consumer's motives and that individual traveler motivation do play a role in this kind of tourism.

Another definition synced with dark tourism is the term "black spots", which are "...commercial developments of grave sites and sites in which celebrities or large numbers of peoples have met with sudden and violent deaths" (Rojek, 1993:136). Rojek shows three different examples of Black Spots - the anniversary of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's murder in Dallas, Texas, the annual candlelight vigil in memory of Elvis Presley and the annual pilgrimage to the part of the Californian highway where James Dean died in a car crash.

Both the expressions "dark tourism" and "thanatourism" will be used in this research, because they have the same meaning, but are differently interpreted. Thanatourism is based on the motivational aspect, while dark tourism is attraction respectively location based. In contrast, black spots are a parts of the dark tourism spectrum and rather describe places of sudden and violent death. In this case, cemeteries would not be part of black spot sites. Seatons interpretation will be used in the following study. As I am investigating motives of people visiting dark tourist sites, I adopt the definition of Seaton because it is more detailed and better understandable than the definitions of Rojek, Lennon and Foley. Furthermore the definition fits better as motivational perspective.

Categorisation of dark tourism

Dark tourism is, in its various forms, multi-faceted, multi tiered and exists in a variety of social, cultural, geographical and political contexts (Stone, 2009). A full categorisation of all death-related attractions is very complex and difficult. Furthermore, in contrast to Foley and Lennon, Seaton (2006) states that thanatourism works on coherence between two elements: first, if the traveler has only one or more motives to visit a place of death, and secondly, the extend to which the interest in death is person-centered or scale-of-death centered.

Referring to Figure 1, it can be concluded that people visiting sites of death, for example a battlefield or a prison where a relative has died or has suffered, have a weak thanatourism element in their motivation. The interest in death is person-centered because this is the purpose of visit in the first instance. In contrast, people who are visiting the same sights but have no relatives or friends which might have suffered there, show a strong thanatourism element. They are interested in death itself and are fascinated by those sights.

Dark tourism supply and demand

It is obvious that people have long been attracted to places of death and disaster. In terms of supply, there has been a rapid growth in the provision of such attractions or experiences; indeed, there appears to be an increasing number of people keen to profit from places of death as tourist attractions, such as a farmer in Pennsylvania who offered a tour of the crash site of the United Airlines Flight 93 - one of the 9/11 aircraft (Bly, 2003). Marcel (2004) recognised that there is a huge range and diversity of dark tourism supply when she examined whether "death makes a holiday", and denoted that dark tourism is a part of the tourism phenomenon and called it "dirty little secret".

In order to investigate the phenomenon of consumer demand of dark tourist sites, it is necessary to examine the topic both from the supply and demand perspective. As Seaton (1996) believes, "dark tourism is essentially a behavioral phenomenon, defined by tourist' motives as opposed to particular characteristics of a site or attraction". To construct any framework, both demand and supply needs to be taken into consideration.

For Foley and Lennon, dark tourism is a temporally, basically western phenomenon "based upon non-purposeful visits due to serendipity, the itinerary of tour companies or the merely curious who happen to be in the vicinity" (2000:23). Therewith, in the two researcher's opinion, dark tourism demand is created unintentionally and is now part of tour companies' programs, with the objective to make money by getting tourists to a "dark" area which is located close to the routes. In this case, the researchers strongly declare that dark tourism is supply-driven. Due to the question whether people coincidentally come across dark tourist sites, as Foley and Lennon (2000) believe, this topic has to be considered critically.

It has to be mentioned that demand and supply are dynamic and always changing. For example, London Dungeon has always exposed horrifying and gory sculptures. These exhibits were the main reason why people came to visit this place. If the management would decide to remove the electric chair, the demand would decrease rapidly (Sharpley, 2009).

It is still unclear whether thanatourism is still getting more and more popular because of the increasing amount and diversity of attractions, or because of the growing interest of people looking for the macabre and frightening (West, 2004). According to Sharpley (2009), there exists a 'continuum of purpose' of supply of dark tourism sites or experiences. He believes that there are tourist attractions which have become dark tourist sites 'by accident' and places which are directly intended to make profit. Figure 2 shows the four 'shades' of tourism, reaching from 'pale' to 'black' tourism.

According to Sharpley (2009), the four shades of dark tourism are devided into four categories. Tourists with a low interest in in death and who are visiting sites which are unintended to be tourist attractions are "pale tourists". Its oposite would summarise people with a high fascination with death and visiting dark tourist sites on purpose. This kind of dark tourism is referred as "the darkest tourism possible". Concerning supply and demand, tourists with fascination with death but visiting unintendet dark tourism sites are demanding grey tourism. Grey tourism supply would delineate sites which are intentionally established to exploit death, attracting visitor with only a minor interest in death.

Battlefield tourism

Battlefield tourism refers to the visitation to sites associated with warfare. These include locations like battlefields, memorials or military graves as well as museums and other structures that commemorate wars, battles and associated events or atrocities (Seaton, 1999). Places like these have attracted tourists from all over the world for more than thousand years. Alexander the Great was one of the first known battlefield tourists, when he visited the Tomb of Achilles and ancient Troy during his invasion of Asia (Wilcken, 1967). Battlefield tourism increased significantly during the last century, which could be ascribed to the growing number of military conflicts since the early 1900s and more generally, the continuing growth of tourism (Sharpley, 2009). Especially the time after the First World War represented a turning point in the history of battlefield tourism. Visits to battlefield sites like Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte's last battle near Brussels in 1815, started to become more and more popular (Lloyd, 1998).

The ongoing search by the tourism industry for new attractions has created a very relevant tourism phenomenon around battlefield tourism (Ryan, 2007). The paradox of a site of battle or war is that visitors are able to move around freely on a once unsafe place where many people have lost their lives. Considering the macabre and abhorrent atmosphere which is radiated by place of war, it is remarkable that some tourists are accepting a long journey in order to get impressed by a site of war, express gladness or even experience sadness.

Battlefield Tours

For a battlefield tour visitor, a battlefield tour has the purpose of understanding what happened and why (Sharpley, 2006). Therefore it can be concluded that tourists belonging to this form of visitation are primary interested in history and the very details of the battle. Even pictures, closest studies and primary sources can not describe the atmosphere of a place where fights have taken place. For example, it is necessary to stand at the beach of Ford Island, Hawaii, to understand how the feeling must have been when the Japanese striking force, consisting of 400 warplanes, attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7 in 1941. With a little bit of imagination, the visitor can see through the eyes of the soldier, although the site may have changed over the years.

To go into more detail and to figure out why tourists visit battlefields, it is important to distinguish between the types of visitation. In order to categorise the survey in Chapter ..., categories of visitations have been pointed out and confronted in pairs: Are the tourists visiting battlefields as a part of an organised tour or are they individual visitors? Do visitors have a weak or a strong thanatoursim element in their motivation? Did people come to battelfield sites voluntarily (Leisure visitors) or have they been "invited" as part of a company outing or an advanced training course (Business/Educational visitors)?

Pilgrimage

Battlefield pilgrimages can be defined as "the travelling for remembrance with the focus on the spiritual and emotional experience of visiting graves and memorials" (Stone, 2009:194). Beside veterans, immediate family members may also visit a battlefield for remembrance. For example, when death was the reason why a couple's marriage ended, it can be very important for the personal healing process of the widow to visit the battlefield where her husband died or the grave where he is buried. In these cases again, a weak thanatoursim element is perceptible beacause the dead are know and the interest in death is person-centred.

But not only immediate relatives have a spiritual relationship to family members who died in war. Also children, whose grandfather lost his life in a battle, can show their pride of having a great warrior. Furthermore, travelling together in a group to a battlefield can be major social event, such as an anniversary. A pilgrimage can also encourage conversations between generations which might not happen anywhere else.

Types of Battlefield visitors

Leisure visitors

According to a survey commissioned by the Royal British Legion in 2006 (based upon a sample of 1000 respondents across the United Kingdom) leisure visitors are the majority of modern tourists at battlefields (Stone, 2009). These visitors show a strong interest in history, especially military history. This popular interest arose from a fascination with the soldier and the battle, due to the fact that the proportion of the population who is serving in the military is diminishing (Holmes, 2006). Another reason for the increasing interest in soldiers could be popular films like Inglorious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino, USA 2009. Depending if leisure visitors travel to battlefield sites on their own or as part of tours, they can either show a high interest (or thanaourism element) in death and disaster or just regard them as side trips of the whole tour being unconcerned with dark tourism.

Educational Visits and Visits by the Military

Visits to battlefields, if procurable, are undertaken by schools and other educational establishments. An opportunity is given to young people and students to understand the background and context of topics learned at school or university. Educational visits to battlefields differ from general leisure visits in points of learning objectives and the chance to provide support for certain parts of the national curriculum (Sharpley, 2006). Furthermore, teachers with personal interests in military history are able to share their enthusiasm and can provoke some thoughts about morality in their student's minds, which is also an important part of education.

Members of the Armed Forces, who view the battlefield as part of the future, also belong to the category of educational visitors. The British Armed Forces use battlefields for tactical training and study (Ryan, 2007), leadership lessons and planning how modern troops would operate on the same ground. Non-military organisations in the United Kingdom, like Corporate Battlefields and Business Battlefields are also using battlefields for leadership or management development programs. People participating in such events are thought to learn from the lessons in history and build effective leading teams to increase business performance. Often, members of such excursion are forced to participate and cannot afford to decline in order to keep their jobs. Therefore it can be concluded that, educational visits, are not "voluntarily" by the majority.

Veterans

Even if this is just a small part of battlefield tour visitors, some veterans still have the desire to visit once more the place where they have fought, to re-experience the place, maybe for the last time in their lives. Some of them make themselves available for tours to narrate their stories to other visitors, who get the chance to get a better and very authentic presentation of the site. Others simply want to understand what happened or the significance of their own role when they fought a war (Stone, 2009). It can be assumed that, for these kind of visitors and according to Seatons (1996) Thanatoursim continuum, there is no specific interest in death and desaster observable.

Tourist Motivation

Tourist motivation can be defined "as the global integrating network of biological and cultural forces which gives value and direction to travel choices, behavior and experience" (Pearce, Morrison & Rutledge, 1998) Motivation has always been an important factor of leisure and tourism study and a basic topic in tourism research (Crompton, 1979; Veal, 1997). According to Wahab (1975), it is fundamental that, for tourism studies and development, the area of travel motivation is taken into consideration. This means that tourism suppliers can benefit from understanding what travelers want in order to predict future travel patterns and adapt the offer. Furthermore, certain tourist types can be selected as target segments for travel and tourist marketing (Smith, 1996) According to Pearce (2007:50), motivation could also be the "driving force behind all actions". People do things because they have a number of motives which can differ enormously from each other. Some visitors travel to Paris for seeing the Eiffel Tower because of its height and the beautiful view over the city, others go to the same city for shopping and the good food. The destination is the same, but different motives brought individuals there and different or even same activities could be based on different motives. Seaton (1997) believes that motivation is generated by an internal feeling, also called an individual's "need", which drives people to achieve certain goals. When all goals have been reached, the need reduces and the individual returns to the initial point until new motives, which are coming up soon after the satisfaction of the last ones, have to be met.

Tourists can be easily classified in terms of demographics, types of travel, economic well being and many other factors, but it is difficult to identify why tourists "do what they do" (Woodside and Martin, 2008). In contrast to the purpose of travel which can be, for example, classified in "business" or "leisure", the private needs and wants are very hard to measure, as they vary between individuals. There is a wide range of human wants and needs and also difficulties in measuring them which poses problems in making theories about travel motivation. To understand how people form their decisions, the decision making process will be briefly touched and also a better explanation of human needs, referring to Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, has to be provided.

Decision Making Process

Decision making can be summarised as the process of eliminating or reducing doubt about any alternatives to make an expedient choice from among them (Solomon, 2006). Nearly all decisions involve a certain amount of risks because there can never, or rarely, be complete knowledge about all alternatives. Furthermore there has to be a degree of uncertainity; otherwise, if not, people would always choose the right way and would never do any mistakes in their lives. In order to determine an ideal decision, a perfect decision environment has to be the basis including all the information of all alternatives. Limitations like time and effort interfere in making ideal decision. For example, nobody would spend 2 hours driving around in the city waiting for the closest parking lot to the supermarket to get vacant.

The decision-making process is influenced by internal and external variables. Attitudes, beliefs, intentions and motivation belong to the psychological part. Variables like time, price and pull factors are completing the external or nonpsychological part. These factors are predetermined, for example the good weather in the Caribbean or the time for going there because of limited holidays. The decision making process involves five stages:

Maslow's Hierarchy of needs

Maslow is said to be one of the founders of humanistic psychology, a school of psychology concerned with the human context for the development of psychological theory (Hoffman, 1999). In Motivation and Personality, first published in 1954, Maslow describes his hierarchy of needs and its relation to motivation in general. In his opinion, all human needs can be organised in a pyramid, consisting of five stages: physiological needs on the bottom and self-actualisation on the top. In between, safety needs, belongingness or acceptance and esteem needs have to be satisfied before reaching the highest level. An individual normally tries to satisfy the physiological needs fist, before higher-leveled needs are emerging. According to Maslow, all human beings follow this order, with slight variations. Sometimes higher levels of needs can predominate, although some basic needs have not been satisfied fully (Maslow, 1970). Figure ... shows Maslow's 5 stages of needs in a pyramid. Adapted from Chaman, 2001-4

Based on this information, the theory has to be applied on tourist motivation. Pearce (1993), for example, has analysed 400 travel experiences of travelers in Europe, Canada, Australia and the USA. One positive and one negative experience had to be written down by the 200 respondents. In accordance to the pyramid of needs, the data was analysed and coded into five categories. For positive experiences, the following result for each need satisfied could me indicated:

To summarise these findings, Pearce (1993) states that travel motivations show characteristics of an "approach-avoidance paradigm" (Woodside, 2008). This means that, for travelers, positive experiences contribute to the higher-leveled stages, while negative experiences rather contribute to the medium leveled stages. Further, Pearce (1993) believes that holiday destinations attract people because tourists see a chance in fulfilling personal growth and love needs.

Push and Pull Factors

According to Dann (1981), tourists are motivated by a push or pull to a destination in order to satisfy needs. He defines push and pull factors in tourism as forces which drive people to move away from a place (push) and factors which draw them to new locations (pull). For example, someone leaves his/her city of birth because of an increasing crime rate and low quality of life (push) and moves to another city with a good infrastructure and where his/her family lives (pull) . Crompton (1979) states that the travel industry focuses more on pull factors and that there is a lack for push factors. Pull factors can be, in contrast to push factors, much better influenced because they are rarely internal. Therefore, travel agencies and tour operators pull tourists to certain sites with the help of creating needs. If someone wants to escape from everyday life and finds a picture of the Caribbean, the tourism supplier pulls potential visitors away from their current locations. Crompton (1979) also mentioned socio-psychological motives which can be the driving forces to make holidays but the effective choice of destination was the pulling power of the destination itself. He believes that socio-psychological motives can direct tourists towards a particular destination but, in the bottom line is that pull factors are prevailing in the decision making process.

In contrast, Uzzell (1984) believes that tourists are rather motivated to visit destinations which match their psychological needs than going to places because of the specific qualities which are offered there. He does not believe that both push and pull factors are motivation fatctors. In his opinion, pull factors are rather explanations for common touristic activities then relevant motivators. He adds that pull factors should even be eliminated from the study of toursim motivation. Crompton (1979) states that, in reality, individuals experience simultaneously mixtures of both push and pull factors and those factors do not necessarily stand alone. As mentioned before, there can be several push factors motivating an individual but also more than one pull factor offered by a site. For example, someone might be pushed to visit Pearl Harbour because his/her grandfather has died there during World War II. Apart from that, a travel agency is offering a two-week holidays package in Hawaii especially prepared for singles, pulling people to the island. Consequently, idividuals might experience both push and pull facors.

Push and Pull factors should not be treated as acting independently from each other, even though they might correspond to individual stages in travel decision making (Crompton, 1979). Individuals travel because they are pulled by destinations and attractions and at the same time pushed by their own internal forces.

Expectancy theory

In contrast to the theory of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, the expectancy theory, which was invented by Victor Vroom in 1964, focuses rather on outcomes than on needs. In order to be motivated, Vroom linked effort, performance and outcomes to motivation. There are three variables which are mentioned: Expectancy, Valence and Instrumentality. Increased performance is the result of increased effort, which is the basic belief of expectancy (Green, 1992). An example of expectancy would be the belief that something will get better if someone works harder for it. The second variable, instrumentality, is the belief that someone performs well, a valued outcome will be received (Green, 1992). In example, if someone does a good job, it will be valued and he/she maybe gets a pay raise. Valence is defined as the importance that the individual places upon the expected outcome (Green, 1992). This would mean that if an employee is mainly motivated by money, he/she would not value other offers like a new office or additional time off.

Having understood these variables, the basic idea behind the theory is that individuals adapt their level of effort depending on the possible outcome. In Vroom's opinion, if somebody believes that if he/she is working harder but the rewards and performances will not be increased and furthermore offered rewards are not valued, the individual will not be motivated. It is important to mention that all three variables have to be fulfilled in order to achieve motivation. The theory can be applied to any situation where someone expects a certain outcome to happen. In relation to dark tourism and the visitation of battlefields, tourists expect certain, in most cases intangible, outcomes. Regarding the example of pilgrimage and spiritual experience, people believe that the visitation of graves or places where relatives or friends have died can result in better understanding the past events and an increased personal healing process.

Motivational Strength

It depends on motivational strength whether somebody prefers reaching one goal opposed to another. Despite the diversity of studies and theories, most of them are sharing a basic idea: individuals have a certain amount of energy which must be directed towards goals (Pearce, 1993). From a psychological perspective, reaching a goal can be equalised with being motivated. If a need arouses, which is growing by and by, the individual wants to satisfy it as soon as possible. For example, if someone is hungry, he/she wants to stop this unpleasant feeling by eating food. As soon as the need is satisfied, the balanced state returns which is called homeostasis (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard and Hogg, 2006). Human behaviour is driven by a basic mechanism to reduce unpleasant tensions, which is termed drive theory. In terms of marketing, the unpleasant state reffers to the need of goods and services which are desired. Though, to be more precise, the degree of motivation is not always the same. For example, the motivation to buy a new one is very high because the old one has been used for many years. If the person who desires a new TV would have bought one a few months ago, the motivation to go again to the store and spend money would be much lower.

The research on motivation in order to understand what actually drives behaviour focuses more on cognitive factors rather than on biological ones. For this research, the drive theory is not crucial and will not be applied. Though, another theory about motivation is taken into consideration. The Expectancy theory suggests that people prefer one product or service over another because they believe that this choice has "more positive consequences" for them (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard and Hogg, 2006:93). For this study it is important to find out which positive consequences could be important to visitors to battlefields and to dark tourism sites in general.

Motivators

Motivation: History

According to Smith (1996), sites of war attract basically people with a strong interest in history and military strategists. These individuals are keen to analyse the events of the past while walking around the area. This would mean that a battlefield visitor does not necessarily have to be attracted by the presence of death; interest in history can also be the reason why people visit battlefields.

The same results were found by Crompton (1979) and Anderton (1995), who stated that cultural and historical interest can be a strong motivator for pleasure travel. Further, Crompton (1979) drew the conclusion, from interviewing 42 adult people, that education and novelty are important travel motivators. In contrast to this, Beech (2000), who, amongst other topics, investigated the visitors´ motivation to concentration camps, does not wholeheartedly believe that visitors with no connection to the camp are motivated by only interest in learning or history. The same theory can be applied to battlefield tourism.

There is, from a historical perspective, a demand in battlefield tourism, National Geographic released in 1992 a guide for battle sites including their histories called the Guide to Civil War National Battlefield Parks in the USA, including photographs and maps showing troop movements. Today there are huge amounts of books dealing with battlefield tours and similar topics on nearly all sites of war in the world. Foley and Lennon (2000) consider that the literature often obliterates and ignores the negative aspects of history, sometimes erroneously and, more often, on purpose. The two researchers want to declare that it is obviously not enough to present the historical and cultural landscape to the visitors, without addressing the issue of morality and crime which are linked with the places. Ignoring and suppressing the view on history as well as changing nature of history are the result of the changing society, which can be linked to changing interpretations.

To summarise the topic of historical motivations, it can be said that interest in history can be a motivator which drives humans to visit sites of death and disaster. Not without reason there are plenty sources where tourists can satisfy there curiosity about battlefields. Due to the fact that there is very little research on tourist motivation to battlefield tourist sites, it can be concluded, based on the opinions of other researchers (Crompton, 1979; Anderton, 1995; Beech, 2000), that the motive to learn more about human history is verifiably a driver, but not the single and only reason why people are visiting battlefields.

Education

In order to understand why wars and battles have occurred and what the consequences were, dark tourism sites can be helpful in forming opinions. Some individuals need to know why their friends or relatives needed to die. Educational travel was first introduced during the beginning of the industrialisation in the 17th century, when enhancement of education and infrastructure, amongst others, increased (Burkart and Medlik 1981). In 1892, the first dark tourism exhibitions with an educational component were promoted in New York, USA. Eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, fabrications of hurricanes and the demolition of Martinique were on the daily agenda of the events on Coney Island (Rojek 1993).

In the present, dark tourists sites are keen on promoting themselves with the help of implementing educational aspects. Tourists also see a chance in self-learning through educational travels. There are various institutes offering educational tours to American civil war sites as well as information sessions, for example the Smithsonian Associates, the Department of Education in Washington D.C, which offered a tour tracing the escape route of President Abraham Lincoln's murderer. One of the core aims of such events is to make people learn from past mistakes, what and how events in the past could have been prevented. At Pearl Harbor, USA, people believe that education could help in providing a more secure tomorrow. People who visited the place are thought to have understood why the attack happened and should have realised that such a tragedy must never happen again (Ryan, 2007).

The difficulty with the topic education in relation to dark tourist sites is the thin line between education and entertainment. Walsh (1992) believes that the educational mission lies very close to amusement. As mentioned in Chapter ..., the London Dungeon offers horrifying tours, where people can see how torture has been used in the past in a very realistic manner. This may not be a very critical or serious approach to history, but it shows the reality and definitely remains in visitors´ minds. Of course this is also an approach to gain the attention of potential visitors, to make history, which might often seem boring - especially to kids and younger people - more interesting and interactive. According to Lennon and Foley (2000), the role of media is also contributing to the belittlement of serious events. Individuals with less knowledge of contemporary history could misunderstand caricatures or movies of people playing a role in very serious tragedies and disaster.

Remembrance

Foley and Lennon (1993) define remembrance as a vital human activity that connects people to their past and future. According to that they continue to declare that the manner how humans remember define us in the present. The two researchers also state that a large part of dark tourist attractions are "warehouses for memories". Sites related to death attract people who want to commemorate either the event or their relatives and friends who have died. In the Christian religion, there is one day a year which is dedicated to all saints, called the All Saints´ Day. In common practice, many Christians visit the cemeteries and the graves where loved people are buried. But not only memories of deceased people stay in minds. Remembrance is also needed to recognise what fundamental incidents formed the identities of individuals, sometimes even the identities of whole cultures. This is why some dark tourist sites are very strict in presenting their monuments regarding the repect of visitors. At Pearl Harbor, a short film is shown to tourists before they are allowed to enter the memorial area. Furthermore, visitors have to be dressed in an appropriate style. This care shows an obvious difference between normal tourist attractions and dark tourism memorials. For instance, nobody cares if someone wears shorts and a hat when visiting the Great Wall of China, which is also a war-related symbol. This difference in presentation might be due to the fact that some symbols of war or war sites are, because of the time which has already passed since then, are "out of date". The Great Wall of China is more than 2000 years old, while the attack on Pearl Harbour happened 61 years ago. Furthermore, most important, victims of the battle of Pearl Harbor are still alive.

Identity

Identity can also be a driving force to visit dark tourist sites. People, even if they do not have a direct connection to the dark tourism event itself, come to a place of death to gain a sense of identity. As mentioned in Chapter ..., tourists are visiting sites where celebrities have met with sudden death, identifying themselves as part of the dead character (Rojek, 1993).

Ashworth (2004) believes that the search for self-understanding and self-identity was the "birth" of the tourism industry. He argues that people who are visiting sites of death and disaster do not necessarily have thanatouristic motivations. In the researcher's opinion, personal motives arise from personal or family history and the desire to pay respect to those whom the visitor feels a connection. Ashworth (2004) mentions that people from Australia and New Zealand are stating that it would be a motivation for them to visit Gallipoli in order to discover who they are and what happened to their in forefathers in history. In this case, referring to Seaton (1996), the thanatouristic element is weak, because there is no evidence that visitors are looking for the macabre and frightening.

Curiosity

According to Ashworth (2004), tourists can also be attracted to sites of death and atrocity because of curiosity. Some researchers also indicate that people visit dark tourist sites in order to view macabre exhibits (Cooper, 2006; Yuill, 2003). Yuill (2003) states that those visitors who come the the site because of couriosity rarely have/had any friends or family members who fought in wars or served in the battlefield presented.

In Uzzells (1989) opinion, people show an insatiable demand in atrocity. Individuals sometimes have a strange habit to be motivated and attracted by psychological stimuli of negative moral worth. This would mean that they have a strong interest in catastrophes and disasters and would be classified in Seatons (1996) strong thanatouristic element scale. Rojek believes that curiosity about dark tourism events and sites is widely spread.

Location

Several authors (Hanink & Stutts, 2002; Yuill, 2003) mention that the location of a dark tourist site or a battlefield is crucial for its number of visitors. Battlefields which are in proximity of other sights or close to places with a large population might attract a large number of visitors. Strong interest in death and disaster might not mainly be the motives to visit dark tourist sites which are close to someones hometown. A trip on the weekend with the family in order to continue ones education can also be reasons to contribute to, in this case, weak thanatourism.

METHODOLOGY

Introduction

In Chapter ..., the researcher outlined a theoretical background for this study. In order to complete the emipiracl research successfully, it is essential to provide an appropriate methodology. It is necessary to select an overall paradigm for every research. There are two paradigms which are often discussed in the literature: qualitative and quantitative (Creswell, 2003). The researcher defines qualitative research as research technique which uses multiple methods which are interactive and humanistic. The research questions might change and be refined during the interview with the participant. Furthermore, the reseracher makes an interpretation of the collected data; "he filters the data through a personal lens" (Creswell, 2003:182). Alternatively, the quantitative paradigm is based on testing a theoretical theorem. Quantifiable variables, usining statistical procedures are analysed. This research method is used to determine the generalisability of a theory. The researcher primarily uses "postpositivist claims for developing knowledge" (Creswell, 2003:18). In other words, findings are identified as positive if a research testifies results of terms which have been defined in advance. The researcher is able to reduce to specific variables and questions. The aim of a quantitative research is to collect data on predetermined instruments that yield statistical data. It depends on the researcher's nature and objectives which paradigm will be selected.

As touched in chapter ..., the research on market segmentation and consumer decision making is mostly based on quantitative and statistical analysis. As this research tries to determine the importance of the role of battlefield sites in tourists decion to visit those sites, a broad range of information and a lot of repsonses are needed. Therefore, the quantitative research method will be used.

This chapter describes the selection of the study site as well as the considerations for an effective method of collecting reliable data, including a presentation of the the limitations of the methodology. The survey design, which provides a numeric description of attitudes and opinions of visitors of the HGM, will be presented.

Selection of the study site

One of the first major decisions to be made is the choice of the study site. This research is investigating in motivations of tourists visiting battlefiled tourist sites. Thus, it would be most appropriate to choose a battlefield as study site. Due to the fact that all big battles in the present area of Austria have taken place in and before the 19th century, there are no battlefields which are interesting for the public anymore. Though, there are museums dealing with the topic of war and war history.

The Heeresgeschichtliche Museum (HGM) in Vienna shows exhibits of the Austrian military history from the 16th century to 1945. It is located in the Arsenal, a historical complex of buildings from the monarchy, which was build between 1850 and 1856 under the behest of Emperor Frant Joseph I by Ludwig Foerster and Theophil Hansen. The HGM claims to be the oldest and largest purpose-built military history museum in the world. It exhibits mainly weapons, rigs, uniforms and photographs of the time from the monarchy of the Habsburg family to the end of World War II. There are 11 permanent exhibitions offered to visitors: The Thirty Years' War, Wars against the Turks, Prince Eugene of Savoy, Maria Theresa (The 18th century), Room of the French Wars, Radetzky Room, Room of Francis Joseph, Sarajewo Room, World War I, Republic and Dictatorship, Austria 1918 until 1945 and Naval Power Austria. One of the most notable parts of the Museum´s collection is the sofa where the Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß died in 1934 after beeing shot by a National Socialist and the automobile in which the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was asassinated in Sarajewo in 1914.

The accessibility and suitability as dark tourist site, as well as the variety of exhibitions offered were crucial in choosing the HGM as study site. In order to capture the largest possible number of respondents, the researcher decided not to distinguish between the exhibitions. Due to the fact that all of the showroom´s topics are related to battlefield alternatively dark tourism, the same questionnaire will be used for all of them. In addition to benefit of having more visitors to expand the sample size, choosing the HGM as a study site has the follwing advantages: due to many resting places in the museum, tourists can participate in the survey without beeing disturbed while observing the exhibitions. Furthermore, the researcher expects that the site attracts tourists with numerous motivations, such as those with an interest in war, interest in learning about the Austria history and having an insight in life during the monarchy and the wars.

The questionnaire

It was decided that a questionnaire survey will be used, which is one of the most common methods to gather information from respondents. Creswell (2003) defines a survey as a package of standadised information from a specific topic usually by means of questionnaire or interview. He lists several advantages of a questionnaire, amongst others, the ability to compile data simply and the ease of administering, coding and analysing a survey.

In reason of that, a self-administered questionnaire with the aim of getting information about tourists' motivations to battlefield tourist sites was developed. Socio-demographic and travel-related questions are also part of the survey. The final questionnaire consists of 20 (16 questions respectively for Vienese residents) closed-ended questions which were asked in relation to possible motivations to the HGM and battlefield tourism to establish if their motivations reflect the literature. 3 demographic questions were asked in order to establish a profile of visitors to the site. 9 questions were designed on a dichotomous response scale, which means that the respondent has two options to choose. The others have 5-point-Likert scale response options; the respondent is presented with a continuous scale ranging from 1 (minimum score) to 5 (maximum score). These questions are used to measure tourist's level of knowledge about the HGM, the importance of the HGM in visitors' decision to come to Vienna, the reasons for visiting the HGM and the interest in battlefield tourism in general.

The final questionnaire is laid out in four pages and arranged in four sections. Question 1a to 5a seeks to understand the tourists´ travel patterns to Vienna and is designed for non-residents of Vienna. Section B (questions 1b to 7b) aims to profile the visitors´ trip to the HGM including travel patterns, motivations and decision making. The third part, question 1c to 5c, seeks to identify the interest in battlefields in general. Finally, section D, contains 3 questions requesting the respondent profile.

Research design

In order to answer the research questions, the push/pull model will be tested. The researcher will analyse the findings and apply them to the push/pull theory. It will be identified which push and pull factors are relevant in visitors´ motivation to sites related to wars and battles. Furthermore, the researcher assumes that there are certain factors affecting visitor's motivation.

Assumptions about factors influencing visitors´ motivation were developed and proved later in chapter ....: people are rather motivated to visit the HGM if (1) they have no knowledge about the museum, (2) the distance to the museum is close, (3) the individual reached a certain age which enables him/her to understand circumstances of the past and reflect them on his/her youth and finally (4) the individual has a relation to Austria and its history.

These assumptions were the basis for following hypotheses:

• H1: Most respondents have never been to the HGM before.
• H2: The better part of the respondents lives in Vienna or in its surrounding area.
• H4: The better part of the respondents will be older than 50.
• H3: Most respondents have a relation the HGM (close relatives/friends who experienced war)