How Long Before Covid Tours Become Part of the Dark Tourism Trend?
Photo Credit: A signer at the National Covid Memorial Wall in London. National Covid Memorial Wall / Matt Brown
Skift Take
Tour operators are understandably expressing no desire to launch Covid-related tours while the pandemic is still ongoing. But as themes like death and tragedy already feature prominently in numerous trips, history suggests some tour operators will eventually include visits to Covid memorials in their offerings.
Death, destruction, war, and illness have fascinated people for decades. So not surprisingly, several destinations associated with those aspects of humanity — such as Auschwitz, Ground Zero and Chernobyl — have attracted large numbers of visitors.
So could places with connections with Covid-19 join them in becoming popular attractions in the realm of dark tourism? You can almost count on it, considering the sector has seemingly grown in popularity in recent years while the pandemic is undoubtedly one of the biggest events of the 21st century.
But what is dark tourism? The term, coined in 1996 by professors John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, refers to the practice of visiting places associated with death and tragedy. While no official statistics exist stating how many travelers participate in dark tourism annually, certain destinations linked to disaster had experienced growth in visitor numbers prior to the pandemic. Chernobyl welcomed a record 124,000 visitors in 2019, attracted
