Unpacking dark tourism motivations: framing places of mafia in South Italy

Over the last twenty years, the interest in visiting places associated with death and disasters has grown along with exponential growth in the offer of dark tourism sites and attractions, such as an increase in searches to destinations associated with death and suffering in the UK and an increase in flight searches for Chernobyl since 2016. Dark tourism is an umbrella concept commonly associated with post-disaster destinations or manmade disaster sites. While mafia sites could be easily associated with dark tourism, the extant literature hasn’t yet explored how tourists’ motivations can frame mafia places and attractions in the dark tourist gaze. Additionally, whilst dark tourism allows tourists to contemplate death as a distant phenomenon, the touristification of mafia places is perceived as quite different and, in some ways, dangerous, in countries where mafia organizations are still heavily active. From a thanatological perspective, tourists could experience an additional measure of perceived risk and worry for their own mortality when visiting these places. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to expand and to update dark tourism taxonomy by addressing mafia tourism as a new form of dark tourism driven by a significant morbid fascination for one’s death. This study developed a multi-method approach consisting of content analysis to explore tourists’ expectations through Trip Advisor comments, and semi-structured interviews to understand dark tourism motivations at Palermo No-Mafia Memorial Museum and Salemi Mafia Museum, in Sicily, Italy.