Mortality salience – shedding light on the dark experience

ABSTRACT

Mortality salience, a key term in Terror Management Theory, refers to self-awareness of one’s vulnerability and ultimate mortality. This exploratory study, based on psychology and tourism literature, clarifies the degree to which a visit to a heritage site of death and atrocities evokes mortality salience as well as the relationship between mortality salience and various dimensions of the visit experience. The findings indicate that not only was mortality salience evoked during the visit, it is also an important component in understanding the motivation to visit dark sites, the emotional experience of the visit, and the impact of the visit on visitors. We therefore propose that the conceptualization and management of a death-centered heritage site can be enriched by the integration of sense of mortality salience. Additionally, the high Cronbach’s alpha suggests that the study can provide an initial basis for a scale to quantitatively measure Mortality Salience.

KEYWORDS:

• Mortality salience
• dark tourism
• Auschwitz death camp
• visit experience
• tourist behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gila Oren is the Head of Department of Marketing and Strategic Management, College of Management, Rishon-Le-Zion, Israel. Dr. Oren is a graduate of the Holocaust Educator Program (Yad Vashem and Ministry of Education, Israel) and her main research interest is the management of Holocaust sites.

Amir Shani is a senior lecturer in the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, in Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Shani specializes in tourism and hospitality ethics, contemporary issues in tourism marketing, and hotel management.

Yaniv Poria is the Chairman of the Department of the Hotel and Tourism Management, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.