Conbinction of virtuality and reality in dark tours promotion

UDC 911.3:338.48 (477.75)

Student

Fidorako Anna Gennadievna

Institute of Economics and Management of State Higher Educational Establishment ‘Crimean University for the Humanities’ (Yalta), Crimea

Scientific adviser: Philosophy Doctor in Economic Science

Lukyanova Yelena Yurievna

Institute of Economics and Management of State Higher Educational Establishment ‘Crimean University for the Humanities’ (Yalta), Crimea

Virtuality and Reality Combination for Thanatours promotion

Nowadays people are attracted by different types of tours. So called “dark tourism” or “thanatourism” is relatively new one for commercial use, but it has profit prospects.

It is known several researches on that kind of tourism by authors E. Bugriy, G. Corsane, E. Çakmak, W. Foley, R. Isaac, J. Lennon, P. Ryzhov, I. Sidorchuk, C. Reed, but combination of virtuality and reality was not suggested.

Purpose of this article is to research virtuality and reality combination for thanatours promotion (and for Crimea area also).

P. Stone and R. Sharpley from the Department of Tourism and Leisure Management of the Lancashire Business School at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, have looked through the lens of the market place at dark tourism; they have coined the term ‘product of dark tourism’, and discuss its supply, demand, and consumption by the ‘dark tourist’. Authors have published prolifically in this area, although not conducted empirical research, and founded an Institute for Dark Tourism. P. Stone suggested that “within contemporary society people regularly consume death and suffering in touristic form, seemingly in the guise of education and/or entertainment”, and sounded a call for research on “Dark Tourism Consumption” to “establish consumer behavior models that incorporate contemporary socio-cultural aspects of death and dying.” P. Stone discussed “the dark tourism product range”, arguing that “certain suppliers [of dark tourism] may [...] share particular product features, perceptions and characteristics, which can then be loosely translated into various ‘shades of darkness’.” [2] His typology of death-related tourist sites consists of seven different types, ordered from light to dark: dark fun factories, dark exhibitions, dark dungeons, dark resting places, dark shrines, dark conflict sites and dark camps of genocide.^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_tourism
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P. Stone and R. Sharpley hypothesized, that coming together in places associated with grief and death in dark tourism represents immorality, so that morality may be communicated.

Tourists' fascination with death is not new – many people traveled to watch the gladiators at the Roman Coliseum battling until one were killed or the onlookers at the sacrificial religious rites of the Maya. In the Middle Ages, pilgrims traveled to tombs, sites of religious martyrdom, and public executions. And this interest in death intensified during the Romantic period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries with attractions like Waterloo and the ruins of Pompeii, which early dark-tourism researcher T. Seaton called the greatest thanatoptic travel destination of the Romantic period. The modern-day dark tourism study primary focus is on sites where death or suffering has occurred or been memorialized, such as battlefields, concentration camps, dungeons, prisons, or graveyards. Destinations of dark tourism include castles and battlefields such as Culloden in Scotland and Bran Castle and Poienari Castle in Romania, former prisons such as Beaumaris Prison in Anglesey, Wales, the Jack the Ripper exhibition in the London Dungeon, sites of natural disasters or man made disasters, such as Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan, Chernobyl in Ukraine and the commercial activity at Ground Zero in New York one year after 9-11-2001.It also includes sites of human atrocities and genocide, such as the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland,the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in China, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia, the sites of the Jeju Uprising in South Koreaand the Spirit Lake Internment Camp Centre near La Ferme, Quebec as an example of Canada's internment operations of 1914-1920.

On Bali death and funeral rites have become commodified for tourism, where enterprising businesses begin arranging tourist vans and sell tickets as soon as they hear someone is dying. In the US, visitors can tour the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, with an identity card which matches their age and gender with that of a name and photo of a real holocaust victim. Against a backdrop of video interpretation portraying killing squads in action, the pseudo holocaust victim enters a personal ID into monitors as they wander around the attraction to discover how their real-life counterpart is faring.

They can use various actions to promote such kind of tours, also in virtuality.

Modern technologies of site web-design development allow creating competitive projects: social networks, scientific ideas researches, virtual tours educative activity and many others. One of most interesting suggestions is virtual tour: combination of panoramic pictures, which have special transition between different areas. A user has possibility not only to have some separated pictures but to concentrate has attention on the very part. Person can look around, up and downward to transform, rotate, and delete some objects. One also can visit virtually every place he likes in any moment of time he prefers: magnificent castles, glorious temples interesting museums, impressive ancient streets, exciting views of nature, mysterious ruins which are breathing by history. This promenade is accompanied by special music and informative text. Person also can choose language, font size, colours. Then one has on opportunity to book a tour.

What advantage can a virtual tour bring to tourist activity? It is not just a high-quality interactive service but it gives a lot of benefits a way to economize time of potential buyer and actual salesman.

Prospects of dark tours in Crimea are in use of backup command headquarters (Alsu tract not far from Sebastopol), former submarine repair factory (Balaklava), Land batteries 34 and 35 (Sebastopol), altar Iphigenia (Kastropol), Inkerman quarry (Inkerman), Adzhimushkai quarries (Kerch), caves of Eni-Sala (sacrifice place near Simferopol), Kyzil Coba (enter to Hades kingdom near Simferopol), Alimova balka (place of shamans and magicians), Valley of Ghosts (enigmatic, unique place, created nature in order that every traveler could admire unique originality of each their stone near Simferopol), Death valley (Crimean war battle place near Balaklava), Meganom cape (is considered as a path, connecting the world of alive and reign of dead near Sudak) and others.

This theses information can be useful for regional authorities on improving economical and management innovations, business leaders and economic universities students.

Literature

1. Exploitation or healthy interest?An analysis of dark tourism[Electronic Source] – Access Mode: http://www.jejuweekly.com/news/article View.html?idxno=776.

2. JFK and dark tourism: A fascination with assassination [Electronic Source] – Access Mode: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1352725960 8722175#preview.

3. Shedding Light on Dark Tourism [Electronic Source] – Access Mode: http://www.gonomad.com/1047-shedding-light-on-dark-tourism.

4. Slavery, Contested Herritage and Thanatourism [Electronic Source] – Access Mode: http://books.google.com/books?id=OeXWAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1& dq=thanatourism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=H0USU8zjC6OEyAGVrYHoAg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=thanatourism&f=false

5. Understanding visitor's motivation at sites of death and disaster: the case of former transit camp Westerbork, the Netherlands [Electronic Source] – Access Mode: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13683500.2013.776021#.VJpwMUgU.