Dark tourism involves visiting sites associated with death, tragedy, and suffering, driven by curiosity, a desire to learn history, or a morbid fascination, raising ethical questions about exploitation versus memorialization.
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this is six minute english from bbclearningenglish.com
bbclearningenglish.com
welcome to six minute english i'm rob
and i'm neil hello today we're talking
about an unusual type of tourism now
tourism is the business of providing
services such as transport or places to
stay or entertainment for people who are
on holiday but instead of providing
sunny holidays in a nice hotel by the
sea this is where tourists travel to
sites of death brutality and terror
it's being called dark tourism now rob
have you ever been to any dark tourist
destination or place yes i visited
auschwitz in poland a fascinating trip
but an obviously depressing place and
next month i'm planning to go to visit
chernobyl the site of a catastrophic
nuclear accident back in 1986.
so these are not your typical
sightseeing trips but a visit to places
that make you curious because of their
significance their importance in history exactly
exactly
we'll talk more about this soon but not
before i set you today's question
now robin island in south africa is one
dark tourism destination it's where
nelson mandela was imprisoned for 18
years but do you know in which year it
finally closed as a prison was it in a 1991
1991 b
b
1996 or c 1999
i don't know but i am going to guess a
1991 because i think he was released in
89 and surely they would have shut it
down pretty quickly after that well i
like your thinking i'll reveal the
answer later on so let's talk more about
dark tourism the word dark is used here
because it relates to places that are
connected with bad or sinister things or
things that could be considered morally wrong
wrong
it's strange to want to visit places
like these
there is what we call a morbid
fascination that's showing an interest
in things connected with death and
destruction and these kinds of trips are
on the increase yes there are organized
tours to places like ground zero in new
york the killing fields in cambodia and
the nuclear power station in chernobyl
and there are the battlefields of world
war one and two and the top security
prison of alcatraz there are also plans
to turn the disaster side to the
fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant in
japan into a tourist destination once
the radiation is reduced but why do
people want to visit these macabre sites
well i mentioned curiosity and a chance
to learn about history but sometimes
people just feel compelled to visit them
but what about the ethics of dark
tourism is it wrong to make this trip
are we not just exploiting or making
money or cashing in on someone's
suffering dr philip stone is an expert
in the subject he's director of the
institute for dark tourism research he
says this type of tourism isn't new
people have been visiting these types of
places for years he says it's always
been there
it's not new in the sense that we we are
fascinated by um other death and uh the
people's uh suffering
but it's it's how it's it's packaged up
by the the tourist industry
so he says dark tourism isn't new
in fact a medieval execution was an
early form of dark tourism
maybe it's just human nature that draws
us to these places
dr stone says it's all about how these
dark trips are packaged so it depends
how they're sold and how tasteful they
are are they sensitive to the horrors of
what has taken place
yes being able to walk around a historic
site or visit a museum is one thing but
how about staying in a former prison in
latvia and paying to be treated like a prisoner
prisoner
or how about crawling around vietnamese
war tunnels whilst people fire guns
outside maybe that's taking the
experience too far dr stone says there's
a blurred line between memorialization
and tourism he means it's hard to
separate going to remember an event and
the people who've died with visiting
somewhere as part of a holiday another
issue when visiting these places is how
you remember your visit you must be respectful
respectful
perhaps taking photos yes but should you
take a selfie
and should you buy a souvenir or send a
postcard home yes well you certainly
wouldn't write on your postcard wish you
were here
anyway let's now reveal the answer to
the question i set you earlier
yes this was about the former prison on
robben island which is now a popular
destination for dark tourism i asked you
when it finally closed as a prison was
it in a 1991 b 1996 or c 1999. and i
said a 1991 and you were wrong actually
it was in 1996
about 350 000 people now visit the site
every year which shows how much interest
there is in a place that you would have
once never wanted to go near
is it somewhere you would like to visit
neil uh i'm not so sure about dark
tourism to be honest
okay well could you instead remind us of
the vocabulary that we've heard today
yes we heard tourism
tourism depressing
depressing catastrophic
catastrophic curious
curious
morbid fascination macabre
macabre compelled
compelled ethics
ethics exploiting
exploiting
human nature tasteful
tasteful memorialization
respectful
thanks neil
well we hope you've enjoyed today's
program please join us again soon for
six minute english from bbc learning
english bye
that was six minute english from bbc
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