"Why Jordan?" Dark Tourism and its Meaning for the Tourists

The view of Amman, during midday

Jordan, or the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is the chosen destination for the summer school program from the University of Groningen. The main goal to visit this country is to explore the mechanism and phenomenon in which tourism activities take place. Jordan is known as one of the most famous tourist destination in the world, as it offers various touristic activities; from a visit to an ancient site to the teeming centre of urban cities. The interesting part of this fact is that, Jordan is an Arab country which is located among several countries that currently exercise political instability. It is located in between Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Palestine. The main external source of instability is the effect of Syria’s civil war and the cost of sustaining a large refugee population. As a consequence, it is very unlikely for tourists to visit this country as a holiday destination due to safety issues.

The map of Jordan, taken from www.jordanjubilee.com

This condition is known as dark tourism, tourism in areas of political turmoil which is frequently related with the chance of exposure to violent conflicts (Buda, 2015). Traditionally, the notion of tourism and conflict are considered as occurring in separated domains. According to Dann (1998), many tourists are not simply motivated by the physical danger and risk, but also triggered by the excitement of visiting current trouble spot. In this case, it is intriguing to find out how political threats and risks interfere with how the tourists apprehend the reality in the destination country. The tourists’ motivation to visit the conflict areas becomes the focus, since it highlights the importance of dark tourism to them. I hope that staying for one week in Jordan will open up new explanations on why people are willing to be involved in dark tourism.

References:

• Buda, D. M. (2015). Affective Tourism: Dark routes in conflict. Routledge
• Dann, G. M. (1998). The dark side of tourism. CIRET-International Center for Research and Studies in Tourism.
• http://www.mota.gov.jo/contents/Tourism_Statistical_Newsletter_2014.aspx