Eliciting Mortality Salience in Dark Tourism and its Influence

Abstract

While dark tourism research has increasingly emphasized mortality salience’s role in exploring dark tourists’ experiences, little is known regarding the triggers and effects of mortality salience. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 tourists visiting the Xuankou Middle School (Wenchuan earthquake site), revealing that both the objective and constructive authenticity of tourism objects can trigger mortality salience. Mortality salience can prompt tourists to seek to increase their self-esteem, family connectedness, and sense of national identity to cope with their inevitable deaths. A second survey-based study found a positive relationship between mortality salience and the identified triggers and effects. Theoretical contributions include advancing terror management theory’s development in dark tourism research, enhancing the understanding of dark tourism’s meanings, and inspiring research on dark tourism’s death education. Practical implications include suggesting managers continuously collect and display authentic objects related to the site’s disaster and provide message areas for tourists to share their experiences.