From mixed emotional experience to spiritual meaning: learning in dark tourism places

• Published in: Tourism geographies Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 105 - 126
• Main Authors: Zheng, Chunhui, Zhang, Jie, Qiu, Mengyuan, Guo, Yongrui, Zhang, Honglei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 01.01.2020; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Ambivalence; Appreciation; China; Dark tourism; Death & dying; Emotional experiences; Emotions; Fear; Fear & phobias; Geography; landscape of fear; Learning; learning benefit; Meaning; mediating effect; Mental depression; mixed emotional experience; Multivariate statistical analysis; Nanjing Massacre; Questionnaires; Sacredness; Sorrow; spiritual meaning; Tourism; Transformation; Victims; Visitors; 中介效应; 南京大屠杀; 学习获益; 恐惧景观; 混合情绪体验; 精神意义; 黑色旅游
• ISSN: 1461-6688; 1470-1340
• DOI: 10.1080/14616688.2019.1618903

While emotionally laden, sites of death could also be places of spiritual transformation and sacredness. In recent years, the 'emotional' turn in geography and tourism studies has called for more research on co-activation and the impact of mixed emotions at these places. In order to address the research gap in how negative/ambivalent emotional experiences could be negotiated, transformed, and constructed into place meaning, we report the findings from 460 questionnaires completed by visitors to one of the darkest tourism places-the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre. The obtained data were used to build a structural equation model, which aimed to examine the subtle relationship between mixed emotional experience (e.g. fear, shock, depression, appreciation) and the spiritual meaning of dark places. Findings corroborated that certain negative emotional experiences also have the potential to broaden-and-build; however, they were not able to directly broaden one's thoughts and add meaning to life as positive emotional experiences do. Positive emotional experiences (i.e. appreciation) have a direct positive effect on spiritual meaning. In contrast, the negative emotional experience of 'fear' has neither a direct nor indirect impact on spiritual meaning, while sorrow, shock, and depression only indirectly create meaning through the full mediating effect of learning benefit. Our empirical results reveal how a site of death becomes meaningful from the tourist's perspective through a particular focus on the impact of ambivalent emotional experiences in dark tourism. In this sense, the findings provide implications for maintaining attractiveness and sacredness of the darkest tourism sites as temporal distance increases.