Progress and prospects for dark tourism research

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to identify the co-authors of dark tourism, influential articles and journals, hot topics, research deficiencies and future research directions. Based on the literature records from 2002 to 2022 in the core database of Web of Science, a comprehensive review of dark tourism research is conducted. The results show that the number of publications on dark tourism is on the rise. The United Kingdom, the United States, China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), Australia and the Netherlands are the major contributors to the study of dark tourism. Hot research topics mainly include: the motivation of tourists to participate in dark tourism, the experience of tourists to participate in dark tourism, the influence of dark tourism and the management of dark tourism destinations. Future studies can pay more attention to the basic theories of dark tourism and its positive effects, and focus more on the psychology and behavior of special dark tourism groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Dark tourism
• disaster
• heritage tourism
• bibliometric approach
• dark tourism theory

Acknowledgments

We thank Kyle Kan PhD, AJE (https://www.aje.cn/) for editing the language of a draft of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

Yunlai Zhang, Jinwei Wang carried out the conception and design of the research, Lixin Wang participated in the acquisition of literature data and analysis and interpretation. Yunlai Zhang participated in obtaining funding. Yunlai Zhang, Jinwei Wang drafted the manuscript and Yunlai Zhang, Lixin Wang, Jinwei Wang, Fang Tian participated in the revision of manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Project of Cultivation for young top-motch Talents of Beijing Municipal Institutions (grant number BPHR202203055), the Key Program of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education (Program No. SZ202110011006 and Program No. BEDB22176), National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 42371267).

Notes on contributors

Yunlai Zhang

Yunlai Zhang is an Associate Professor in the School of International Economics and Management at Beijing Technology and Business University, China. His research interests include heritage tourism and tourism marketing.

Lixin Wang

Lixin Wang is a postgraduate in School of International Economics and Management at Beijing Technology and Business University, China. Her research interests include heritage tourism, tourism economics and tourism policy.

Jinwei Wang

Jinwei Wang is an Associate Professor in the School of Tourism Sciences at Beijing International Studies University, China. His research interests include heritage tourism, tourism economics and tourism policy.

Fang Tian

Fang Tian is a lecturer in School of Foreign Languages at Beijing Technology and Business University, China. Her research interests include second language acquisition and language teaching.