The positive role of negative emotions in heritage-site visits: the case of Auschwitz Death Camp

ABSTRACT

This exploratory qualitative study focuses on two issues: (1) an examination of the emotions that participants expect to feel when visiting a heritage site presenting death and atrocities; and (2) the emotions they feel during the visit. The study is based on 43 semi-structured interviews with participants from Israel, Poland, and Germany. The findings revealed the centrality of negative emotions that emerge at a heritage site, and the co-existence of positive/pleasant and negative/unpleasant emotions such as pride, satisfaction, frustration, sadness, and anger. Additionally, the findings showed the interlinks between the on-site presence, the intensity of the emotional experience, and its memorability. The findings highlight the significant role of negative/unpleasant emotions for the conceptualization of heritage tourism and distinguish it from other types and forms of tourism.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional experience
• positive emotions
• negative emotions
• dark tourism
• Auschwitz Museum

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gila Oren

Gila Oren, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer, Head of Marketing Studies, and a faculty member, School of Business Administration at the College of Management. He serves as an official Yad Vashem guide in Poland, including for IDF and security-forces delegations. Heritage Sites Visitation Experience was the topic of her PhD dissertation, where she focused on visits to the Auschwitz- Birkenau death camp. His main fields of interest are the meeting points between management and heritage, as well as the visitation experience at heritage sites. She is currently involved in Second Generation research, examining perceptions of the Holocaust and commemoration.

Yaniv Poria

Yaniv Poria is the Academic Director of Eilat Campus and a Professor at the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, at Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

Arie Reichel

Arie Reichel is Professor Emeritus and the former Dean of the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. He is the Founding Dean of BGU's southern campus at the resort city of Eilat and the Founding Head of the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management on BGU's main campus in Beersheba. He published dozens of articles in top tourism and hospitality journals such as Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, and the International Journal of Hospitality Management. He is a member of the editorial board of six journals, and acts as an ad-hoc ‘blind referee’ to many other journals. His main current research interests are in tourists' behavior and managerial planning issues in the hospitality and tourism industry. Recently he focuses his scholarly work on the inclusion of disenfranchised segments in the tourism experience, in term of servicecape, both physical and human.