Batten Down the Hatches! Conceptualizing Conflict Zone Tourism

This article aims to uncover why tourists visit conflict zone sites, focusing on understanding their behavior and conceptualizing this phenomenon, adding new contributions to the tourism literature. We conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with travelers from various nations who went to conflict zones, analyzing data based on grounded theory. Our empirical findings highlight various inspirations that drive conflict zone tourists to seek experiences in war-torn locations, categorized into three dimensions: (1) the traveler gaze, (2) risk-fear rationalization, and (3) cultural ambiguity. Conflict zone tourism is conceptualized as a separate phenomenon from dark tourism, centered on moral-political interests, self-fulfilling experiences, cultural immersion, risk management, memorable experience, and thrills. A taxonomy of the conflict zone tourists is proposed, and their complex initiatives and personas are discussed. The paper theorizes the traveler versus the tourist gaze, positioning the conflict zone tourists as driven by authenticity in a commodified world. Also available in Portuguese. See Supplemental Material for details.