As tourism turns away from generic beach breaks and holiday resorts, dark tourism has become increasingly popular. This thesis offers an extended investigation into the ethical questions raised from how we monetise and commercialise places of death and tragedy. By ruminating on these key aspects, we are able to determine a light to dark scale within dark tourism, where sensitivities are dictated by time scales, authenticity and site-specific content.
For my designed thesis artefact, I created a colour swatch piece inspired by the Pantone book. I used monochrome to relate to the shades of Phillip R. Stone's ‘A Dark Tourism Spectrum’ which is mentioned throughout and a direct relation to the subject conceptually. The pages progress from white to black, delineating the trend of tourism getting darker. The argument forms a journey looking at the lighter topics of motivations and scope followed by how management has to be supplied, sensitised and interpreted. As the argument ends, we are at the darkest point of reflection. This is therefore an effective extension and the visual language communicates that as the thesis unfolds and develops, so does the physical aspect of the designed artefact.
