Explaining the Indigenous Dimensions of Dark Tourism in Iran: An Interpretive Narrative of Experts’ Experiences and Perceptions
Keywords:
Dark Tourism, Thematic Analysis, Iran, Indigenous Framework, Tourism Policy-MakingAbstract
Dark tourism, as an emerging branch of the tourism industry, encompasses visiting sites associated with death, disasters, and human suffering, and has been developed in many countries for purposes such as education, historical remembrance, and even revenue generation. Despite Iran’s rich historical, cultural, and natural capacities in this domain, the country lacks a comprehensive indigenous framework for guiding and managing this type of tourism. The present study, adopting a qualitative approach and employing thematic analysis, identified the indigenous dimensions and components of dark tourism in Iran and provided strategies for mitigating its negative consequences. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with tourism experts, managers, and researchers, and subsequently organized into main and sub-themes through open, axial, and selective coding. Findings revealed five main dimensions: infrastructural and developmental factors, marketing and information dissemination, economic and investment aspects, cultural–social and religious considerations, and managerial and policy requirements, which play the most significant role in shaping and guiding dark tourism. In addition, strategies such as improving physical and digital infrastructures, designing ethics-oriented marketing models, training and empowering human resources, and utilizing modern technologies (such as augmented reality) to provide a controlled and meaningful experience were proposed. By addressing the existing research gap, the results of this study offer an indigenous framework for policymakers, managers, and tourism industry practitioners to purposefully and sustainably harness the potential of dark tourism in promoting the cultural, social, and economic development of the country.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Elham Adibinia (Author); Shahnaz Nayebzadeh (Translator); Seyyed Hassan Hataminasab (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
