International tourists’ dark tourism experiences in China: the case of the memorial of the victims of the Nanjing Massacre

ABSTRACT

Using online reviews, this study aims to reveal the complexity of international tourists’ dark tourism experiences in China. The Memorial of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre was selected, as it is one of the most popular man-made dark tourism sites in China. A micro and meso-level discourse analysis was employed to analyse the online review comments. Four contradictory but interrelated discourses were identified: ‘suitability for children or not’, ‘respect or not’, ‘neutral or biased interpretation’ and ‘focus on past mistakes or looking forward to future peace’. This study contributes to the dark tourism literature by providing an international tourists’ perspective and experiences at a dark tourism site in China as well as highlighting the role of children in mediating these.

KEYWORDS:

• dark tourism
• China
• international tourists
• online reviews
• discourse analysis

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the three reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments and suggestions for the paper. We would also want to thank Prof. Zhiyong Li for his support on our study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by Graduate Student’s Research and Invitation Fund of Sichuan University (to CUI Rui) (grant number 2018YJSY031), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (to XIN Shuang) (grant number 20822041B4022).