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Battlefield sites as dark tourism

attractions: an analysis of experience
a
Stephen Miles
a
School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow,
Rutherford/McCowan Building, Crichton University Campus,
Dumfries DG1 4ZL, UK
Published online: 27 Jan 2014.

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To cite this article: Stephen Miles (2014) Battlefield sites as dark tourism attractions: an analysis of
experience, Journal of Heritage Tourism, 9:2, 134-147, DOI: 10.1080/1743873X.2013.871017

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 Journal of Heritage Tourism, 2014
Vol. 9, No. 2, 134– 147, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1743873X.2013.871017

Battlefield sites as dark tourism attractions: an analysis of experience

∗
Stephen Miles

School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow, Rutherford/McCowan Building, Crichton

University Campus, Dumfries DG1 4ZL, UK
(Received 19 August 2013; accepted 25 November 2013)

There has been much discussion by scholars about the efficacy of the term ‘dark tourism’
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with a call to move from a theoretical to a more evidence-based approach to research.

Recent analyses of dark heritage sites have shown that research has yet to engage fully
with the experiences of tourists at dark sites. This paper seeks to meet this challenge by
providing more evidence of the actual experiences of tourists at those sites which are
conceptually identified as ‘dark’ using the particular example of battlefields in the UK.
Based on a wide-ranging survey of battlefield sites the study used a blend of quantitative
and qualitative methods to determine the nature of tourist experience. Central to this was
a content analysis of visitor comments and vocabulary used to describe the sites. The
results showed that visitors had a wide range of experiences but there was no evidence of
a considered appreciation of the sites’ ‘darker’ aspects. Visitor experience here is casual
and dominated by a lighter set of values. This is affected by the commercial nature of the
sites which supports the assertion that thanatopsis is a rare feature of tourist visits.
Keywords: dark tourism; battlefields; war; thanatourism

Introduction
Travel to places associated with death and suffering has long been a feature of the tourist
experience and has recently attracted much scholarly attention (Biran & Hyde, 2013;
Biran & Poria, 2012; Lennon & Foley, 2000; Seaton, 1996; Sharpley & Stone, 2009;
Stone, 2011). The focus thus far has been on theoretical viewpoints in an attempt to under-
stand a phenomenon characterised by Tarlow (2005) as the ‘embarrassing secret’ of
tourism. Nevertheless, recent analyses of dark heritage sites have claimed that despite pre-
vious calls for a more evidenced-based approach (see, e.g. Seaton & Lennon, 2004) research
has yet to engage fully with the experiences of tourists at dark sites (Biran, Poria, & Oren,
2011; Sharpley, 2012). This paper seeks to meet this challenge in providing more evidence
of the actual experiences of tourists at those sites which are conceptually identified as ‘dark’
using the particular example of battlefields. Evidence is provided from the UK sites at Hast-
ings (1066), Bannockburn (1314), Bosworth (1485) and Culloden (1746) (Figure 1) to
support the assertion that rather than characterised by ‘dark’ engagement the tourist experi-
ence at these sites is more casual and marked by a lighter set of values.
Empirical studies are important in guiding the debate over whether dark tourism is a
tangible and uniformly recognised phenomenon or whether it exists only in the minds of

∗
Email: s.miles.1@research.gla.ac.uk

# 2014 Taylor & Francis

 Journal of Heritage Tourism 135
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Figure 1. Location of the four UK battlefield sites.

Source: This work is based on data provided through EDINA Census Support with the support of the
ESRC and JISC and uses boundary material which is copyright of EDINA, University of Edinburgh.

the academic community and a selection of the more self-aware dark tourist attraction pro-
viders. The very exponents of the dark tourism sub-field have themselves questioned
whether a defined type of ‘dark’ tourist really exists (Seaton & Lennon, 2004, p. 81).
Lennon and Foley (2000, p. 23) felt that dark tourism was an opportunistic undertaking
with far more serendipity than pre-meditated decision to visit a dark site. Tourist motivation
is likely to be a more complicated phenomenon than often thought with a whole welter of
different social pressures and contingencies influencing the tourist decision. Tourist behav-
iour is subject to the unpredictable fickleness of the individual and as Pearce (1993, p. 114)
has commented, ‘tourist motivation is discretionary, episodic, future orientated, dynamic,
socially influenced and evolving’. Attempts to explain why tourists are motivated to visit
dark sites might therefore be doomed to a frustrating realisation that there is little positive
desire for visiting a dark attraction. The purpose and overall objective of this paper is to
examine tourists’ experiences at dark sites in a bid to explore what they mean to them.

Dark tourism: the theoretical background

Dark tourism has been variously termed ‘morbid’ or ‘black spot’ tourism or ‘milking the
macabre’1 and is almost interchangeable with the term thanatourism. It can include visits
 136 S. Miles

to sites of executions, massacres, assassinations, cemeteries, mass graves, memorials,

prisons, concentration camps and battlefields. Its conceptual origins lie in the argument of
MacCannell (1999) who stated that commoditisation in postmodern society seeks to create
as many ‘experiences’ as possible which are manufactured and sold although leave no
material trace. That tourists are motivated to experience death and its sites in this way, is
part of a vast world of symbolism where ‘tourist attractions and the behaviour surrounding
them are . . . one of the most complex and orderly of the several universal codes that consti-
tute modern society’ (MacCannell, 1999, p. 46). The tourist feels that sight-seeing is the best
way of showing that s/he is not alienated from society and MacCannell provides an interest-
ing anecdote of the practice of morgue-visiting in the early twentieth-century Paris which
illustrates this (MacCannell, 1999, p. 71). Building on this Lennon and Foley (2000) dis-
cussed dark tourism as an expression of the postmodern commoditisation of death. This
has been challenged by Stone and Sharpley (2008) who adopt a deeper thanatalogical expla-
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nation of dark tourism to explain it as a way of confronting death in modern society where the
process of dying is being constantly sequestrated by professionalisation, medicalisation and
privatisation. Stone (2012) has further developed this interpretation by considering thana-
tourism as a ‘mediating’ process which allows a safe and acceptable link with the dead
and a cognitive space to construct an ontological understanding of mortality.
Biran et al. (2011) have suggested that thanatourism can be understood with reference to
three different conceptual groupings. The first is a supply perspective which sees thanatour-
ism as ‘the act of travel to sites associated with death, suffering and the seemingly macabre’
(Stone, 2006, p. 146). This would then interpret thanatourism by a description of these sites
themselves as with the ‘darkest’ to ‘lightest’ spectrum devised by Stone (2006). This is
based upon product characteristics and a clear difference between sites of death and suffer-
ing (darkest) and those associated with death and suffering (lightest). The main weakness
with this is that as a descriptive definition of sites it ignores the meanings attached to places
by tourists and the possibility that they can have diverse meanings for individuals. The
second is the demand perspective where dark tourism is understood in terms of the motiv-
ation to visit. The weakness of this approach is that not all motivations to visit dark tourism
sites involve an interest in death. The third grouping is the integrated supply-demand per-
spective which brings together the site attributes and the individual’s experience. This
experiential approach understands dark tourism as an interactive process between the
tourist and a site’s attributes. This acknowledges the diversity of the tourist experience
and ‘shifts attention away from the displayed objects to the visitors’ subjective construction
of the experience’ (Biran & Poria, 2012, p. 65).
This paper adapts the latter perspective and argues that dark tourism is best understood
by a more comprehensive assessment of site and experience. Sharpley (2005) has argued
that rather than interpreting dark tourism solely on the basis of product features more atten-
tion needs to be given to the level of interest and fascination with death expressed by the
tourist. Dark tourism is thus understood as a function of the attitude of the viewer and
the extent to which a site has been developed to exploit this attitude. The paper contends
that battlefields are on the supply-side of dark tourism. Tourists, however, adopt a
variety of attitudes towards the sites and their experiences are not consistently those of
the dark experience seekers as outlined in the literature.

Epistemological and definitional considerations

This paper has the underlying premise that the phenomenon of tourism associated with
death is called ‘dark tourism’ and that the sites surveyed are ‘dark’. Although the terms
 Journal of Heritage Tourism 137

‘dark tourism’ and ‘thanatourism’ are used interchangeably here certain caveats need to be
made with regard to the way they are used. Seaton (2009) has argued that one of the major
issues with the term ‘dark tourism’ is that it is a value judgement set in binary opposition to
a kind of tourism that is ‘light’. He claims that dark tourism has ‘transgressive, morally
suspect and pathological’ connotations. The problem is that its dark associations can be
viewed as pejorative and sinister in contrast to ‘light’ tourism which must be ‘good,
moral, and normal’ (Seaton, 2009, p. 525). The literature supports the fact that travel associ-
ated with places of death involves a range of experiences not all of them ‘dark’. These can
be the experiences of those, for example, at the places of assassination of the famous like
John F. Kennedy (Lennon & Foley, 2000) or those visiting battlefield sites for commemora-
tive (Iles, 2008) or nationalistic (Slade, 2003) purposes. Seaton prefers to use the term ‘tha-
natourism’ which is ‘tourism motivated by the desire to visit places . . . associated with
death, whether or not death is seen to be a principle motivation’ (Seaton, 2009, p. 522).
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This removes the oppositional problems and allows us to define a person visiting a site
of death as a ‘Thanatourist’ whether they have any ‘dark’ experience of the visit or not.
In using the term ‘dark tourism’ this paper makes the assumption that battlefield sites are
places with ‘dark’ associations. As will be seen from the results, however, the paucity of
‘dark’ words used suggests that these tourists should not be labelled as ‘dark tourists’.
A further linguistic consideration relates to the way tourists are categorised as ‘dark
tourists’. In setting out to investigate the experiences of tourists (insiders) at battlefield
sites this paper adopts this linguistic label which has been created by academics (outsiders)
to explain the phenomenon of visiting sites associated with death. Social categorisation
such as this is a normal way of identifying difference and significance between groups
(Jenkins, 2000) and is a way of satisfying the ‘basic human need for cognitive parsimony’
(Hogg & Abrams, 1988, p. 72). It does, however, raise questions about who is labelling who
and the extent to which the ‘labelled’ are aware of their own categorisation. It also raises the
question whether a member of a social or experiential grouping such as ‘the dark tourist’
needs to verbally articulate this for this categorisation to be valid. This paper is written
on the premise that this category does not need explicit verbal articulation from its subjects
to exist and that the outsider definition of the ‘dark tourist’ (even though deconstructed by
this paper) is a legitimate foundation for the study.

Battlefields as dark tourist attractions

Within the literature battlefield tourism is commonly seen as a form of dark tourism
(Dunkley, Morgan, & Westwood, 2010; Ryan, 2007) although this has been challenged
by those who identify aspects of visitation which do not fit into a thanatouristic definition
(Baldwin & Sharpley, 2009). From a supply-side perspective battlefields would be towards
the darker edge of Stone’s spectrum (mentioned above) as sites of great morbidity and a
greater level of perceived authenticity. Some battlefield sites have a much shorter time
scale from the event than others, as with the sites of the two world wars, and could be
viewed as darker than older conflicts. Although these criteria place them at the darker
end of the scale it would be unwise to suggest that the World War One (WW1) Western
Front in France and Belgium, for example, is darker than Culloden simply on the basis
of its chronological nearness to the present era. Site locational factors can enhance the res-
onance of sites and it could be argued that Culloden is a more ‘dark’ inducing site than some
of the more bland landscapes of the WW1. In addition to this the nature of interpretation in
battlefield site management cannot be discounted when assessing levels of darkness. The
choice of method and media can determine the position of the supplier on the dark
 138 S. Miles

tourism scale and how the message is received by the visitor. Sites can be ‘lightened’ by
elements of entertainment in their interpretation (as with re-enactments and costumed
actors), quite high levels of tourist infrastructure and at some sites unreliable locational
authenticity (as, for example, at Bannockburn). Stone (2006, p. 158) did acknowledge
that ‘products may display a hybrid of characteristics . . . and thus not fit easily within
the overall supply framework’ yet his model remains a useful starting point for discussing
the range of different dark tourism sites.

The fieldwork sites

There are over 500 battlefield sites in England (Raynor, 2004) and more than 350 in Scot-
land (Foard & Partida, 2005, p. 7) but very few of these have any form of interpretation or
attendant infrastructure to make them appealing to the visitor. For this reason, the survey (as
part of a wider Doctoral study into battlefield tourism) chose the four main ‘managed’2
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British sites of Hastings (1066), Bannockburn (1314), Bosworth (1485) and Culloden
(1746) where there was sufficient volume of visitors to provide significant results. In
addition to this there has been much less research on visitor experiences at these ‘historic’
sites than, for example, the battlefields of the Western Front in France and Belgium
(Dunkley et al., 2010; Iles, 2008; Seaton, 2000). The survey was thus designed to add to
our understanding of visitor experiences, including dark tourism, in what has hitherto
been a relatively uncharted area.
These battlefields hold an important place in English and Scottish national conscious-
ness as the location for particularly important events which brought about dramatic change.
The Battle of Hastings (1066) marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon era (the early fifth-
century AD until 1066) and the beginning of Norman rule in England. It was also the
last time the country was invaded by a foreign enemy. Bannockburn (1314) was where
the Scottish king Robert the Bruce defeated the English under Edward II which led to
the granting of Scottish independence from England in 1328. Bosworth (1485) was the cul-
mination of the dynastic conflict known as the Wars of the Roses in the late fifteenth century
between the ‘houses’ of York and Lancaster. The battle resulted in the death of Richard III,
the last Plantagenet monarch, and the start of the Tudor dynasty. Finally, Culloden (1746)
was the last battle in the Jacobite Rebellion (1745– 1746) against the Hanoverian dynasty
led by the Stuart ‘pretender’ Bonnie Prince Charlie. With the defeat of the rebel forces it
marked the end of this serious challenge to the British throne and was the last battle to
be fought on British mainland soil.
Tourist interest in these sites was relatively dormant until the marked expansion in inter-
est in heritage which took place in the latter part of the twentieth century (Hewison, 1987).
The opening dates for visitor centres at the sites reflect this (Table 1). Visitor numbers at the
sites are given in Table 1 which shows how Hastings is particularly popular benefitting
considerably from its position in the densely populated south-east of England and by its
proximity to London.

Methodology
The methodological approach employed in this project consists of a mixture of quantitative
and qualitative methods in order to construct a detailed picture of experiences and attitudes.
This mix is well acknowledged in the literature as an effective mode of practice (Ritchie,
Burns, & Palmer, 2005; Valentine, 1997). It was considered the most suitable approach
in investigating tourist experience with the limitations of time and resources available.
 Journal of Heritage Tourism 139

It was also considered the most appropriate way of exploring the theoretical basis of the
dark tourism debate particularly the nature of experience at sites which are considered
‘dark’. It was not, however, possible to follow up the opinions of respondents after they
had left the sites (as, for example, in the work of Dunkley et al. (2010) at the WW1
sites). Consequently, the nature of visitor opinions post-visit remains a useful area for
further investigation. Further limitations of the survey are that it only covered four sites
in the UK and it was not feasible to investigate ‘non-managed’ battlefield sites.
A questionnaire was used comprising a mixture of closed- and open-ended questions
administered by the researcher to respondents face-to-face. This is a common method in
social research and the blend of qualitative and quantitative questions allowed for a
thorough investigation of respondents’ attitudes and opinions. The great strength of
open-ended questions is the flexibility they give to respondents who are free to say what
they want and essentially become co-researchers in directing the interview towards new
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and unexplored areas (Ritchie et al., 2005; Robson, 2002; Valentine, 1997). Time was an
important consideration in the staging of the interviews and sensitivity was needed in not
disrupting the visit or distracting from its pleasure for the subject. All open-ended verbal
responses were hand-written with no electronic recording. These were then subject to a
post-survey category analysis which identified a number of key themes. There are clearly
potential issues of inaccuracy in the reliability of hand-written comments with no electronic
back-up in this type of fieldwork. These concern the difficulties of writing as the words are
spoken and the possibility of omission and misinterpretation. Consequently although the
comments were recorded as close to verbatim as possible this must remain a limitation
in the accuracy of the material recorded here. Interviews took place during June and July
2010 on four days at each site and 50 questionnaires were administered at each. Respon-
dents were chosen on a next-to-pass basis.
The results which are presented here are only those relevant to the objectives of this
paper and the full study covered a much wider range of issues relating to meanings and
tourist interpretations. This included the manner in which battlefield sites develop into
tourist attractions (or not), the extent to which interpretation impacts upon the visit and
the deeper meanings associated with such sites. The study included an analysis of the
four sites outlined here as well as those of WW1 on the Western Front. This allowed for
comparisons to be made between the different characteristics of battlefield sites and the
relationship between interpretation and meaning.

Tourist experiences at battlefield sites

Demographic and quantitative data
Over all the sites 57.5% of males and 42.5% of females were interviewed and the age profile
showed a strong bias towards the older groups with 76.0% of respondents over 40 years.
The majority of groups interviewed comprised two or three people with slightly larger
group sizes at Bannockburn and Hastings. The educational background of visitors was
dominated by those with higher qualifications (graduate and postgraduate) who comprised
56.0% of the total sites sample (Table 2). The higher socio-economic groups (A and B)3 are
strongly represented across all sites with 52.0% of the sample (Table 2). As can be seen
from Figure 2, there were a relatively large number of overseas respondents (77 out of
200) with those from North America and Germany comprising over half. The majority
of interviewees were on their second visit with 83% of the sample for all sites with a stron-
ger result at Culloden and Hastings. This reflects a greater level of recreational usage at
 140
Table 1. Data relating to the fieldwork sites.
Is this your first visit to the
battlefield site? (%)
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Visitor numbers: 2009/2010 Opening dates for first visitor centres First time Second More than twice
Culloden 99,335(2010) 1959 8.0 90.0 2.0
Bannockburn 50,143(2010) 1967 28.0 72.0 –
Bosworth 40,297a 1974 22.0 78.0 –
Hastings 137,805a 1976 8.0 92.0
All sites 16.5 83.0 0.5

Sources: Internal survey data tables e-mailed from the management of the sites and fieldwork survey.
a
Excludes events.

S. Miles
Table 2. Battlefield survey data.
Levels of education (%) Occupational groups (%)
Semi- Higher
None U/R/ skilled/ Skilled Junior Middle managerial/
Higher- Higher- of the S/LTS unskilled manual managerial managerial professional
Secondary Technical Further graduate postgraduate Other above (E)a manual (D) (C2) (C1) (B) (A)
Culloden 22.0 8.0 4.0 40.0 20.0 2.0 4.0 38.0 – 6.0 10.0 18.0 28.0
Bannockburn 20.0 12.0 10.0 32.0 22.0 2.0 2.0 36.0 – 8.0 8.0 18.0 30.0
Bosworth 16.0 12.0 14.0 26.0 26.0 – 6.0 34.0 – 8.0 8.0 20.0 30.0
Hastings 20.0 2.0 16.0 38.0 20.0 2.0 2.0 18.0 – 10.0 6.0 18.0 48.0
All sites 19.5 8.5 11.0 34.0 22.0 1.5 3.5 31.5 – 8.0 8.0 18.5 34.0
a
Unemployed/retired/student/long-term sick.
 Journal of Heritage Tourism 141

Figure 2. Nationalities of respondents (all sites).

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these sites. Overall very few interviewees were experienced in visiting battlefield sites as
can be seen from Table 1.
Much can be learnt from the vocabulary used by visitors in describing heritage sites and
respondents were asked to provide a list of descriptive single words. These were then col-
lated and analysed using three indicative categories: emotional/affective, descriptive and
thoughtful. (Although these categories do not affect the results outlined in this paper
they are given here to provide context.) Those words considered thanatoptic were then iso-
lated for each site. Examples of such words were ‘horrific’, ‘ghostly’, ‘suffering’, ‘eerie’,
‘gory’ and ‘terrible’. This was undertaken to provide an indication of the extent to which
sites were considered ‘dark’. Space does not permit the presentation of word results for
all sites but an example is given for one site, Bannockburn, in Table 3. Table 4 provides
a summary for all sites.
The results demonstrate that based upon the vocabulary used there is a relatively low
thanatoptic outlook for all sites. The higher result for Culloden might reflect the site’s mel-
ancholic and emotional resonance with visitors (McLean, Garden, & Urquhart, 2007),
which has strong thanatoptic aspects. For example, Culloden is the only example from
the four sites which has graves of those killed in the battle actually on the site and this
has the potential to place it more firmly in a dark context. The surveyed battlefields do
not induce dark descriptions but this might not necessary imply that those coming to
visit them are not seeking an encounter with death and suffering. Visitors might be motiv-
ated for dark reasons but the sites might not provide this type of experience for them. The
results are unable to determine whether this is the case, however, but do show how the sites
fail to stimulate the more visceral thanatoptic experience that is more commonly associated
with the ‘sites of’ side of Stone’s spectrum mentioned above.

Visitor comments
If the quantitative data suggest that tourists do not associate sites with the deeper recesses of
thanatopsis then it would be useful to explore this further from a more involved phenom-
enological assessment. Asking open-ended questions in a semi-structured manner gave the
researcher scope to allow respondents to express their own views on the site and their
experience of it. The results presented here stem from two questions: ‘What has been the
most meaningful aspect of the battlefield for you today?’ and ‘Do you have any other com-
ments about your experience at the battlefield site today?’ These were entirely unprompted
and generated a significant amount of comment. The material was subject to content analy-
sis and the themes identified from this are outlined in Table 5.
 142 S. Miles

Table 3. Category analysis of vocabulary question: What single words would you use to describe the
site? (Bannockburn).
1. Emotional/affective 2. Descriptive 3. Thoughtful
Embarrassed Rip off Reverent × 2
Moving Modern Justice
Emotional Contemporary Resonant
Pride Historic × 7 Peaceful × 6
Evocative 3 2 Commercial Spiritual
Sad × 4 Beautiful Thought provoking × 2
Fantastic Spacious Experiential
Impressive Small Memorable
Depressing Confined Disappointing
Amazing × 2 Great Disconcerting
Underwhelming Detailed Poignant 3 3
Awesome × 3 Nice × 2 Interesting × 4
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Disturbing Mixed Informative × 3

Ghostly Very good Tranquil × 2
Emotive Good × 3 Very informative
Gory A treasure Interpretative
Beautiful Realistic × 2 Hardship (of people)
Fantastic Incredible Patriotic × 2
Enthralling Superb Imaginative
Moving × 2 Poor Reflective
Eerie 3 2 Authentic Hallowed
Proud Exposed Non-stimulating
Emotive Cold Still
Horrific Topographical Nostalgic
Breathtaking Unspoilt Inspiring × 2
High (ground)
33 36 42
Note: ‘Dark’ words marked in bold. Total: 111.

Table 4. What single words would you use to describe the site?
% Number of ‘dark’ words Total number of words
Culloden 19.2 26 135
Bannockburn 10.8 12 111
Bosworth 6.2 11 177
Hastings 6.5 10 154

This table demonstrates that a direct and self-evident thanatoptic result is absent in that
not enough comments were offered to form a discrete category reflecting ‘darker’ aspects.
The largest number of comments was grouped into those relating to Interpretation (34.8%)
followed by the historical aspects of the sites (18.2%) and Realism (15.0%). Other groupings
were statistically very small. Tourists did appreciate the interpretational impact of these sites
and evidence from elsewhere in the survey shows how learning did take place. Visitors under-
stood the historical, nationalistic and moral backdrop to the events and particularly appreci-
ated the human stories. Nevertheless, one can predict certain perceptual overlaps between
thanatopsis and other comments reflected in the categories hardships and horror (6.5% of
the total) and numinous and spiritual (2.7% of the total) and these are now discussed in
further detail in order to determine whether a thanatoptic sentiment is present.
 Journal of Heritage Tourism 143

Table 5. Category analysis of question responses (aggregate of all four sites).

Themes Percentage of total Number of items
1 History 18.2 73
2 Nationalistic views 6.5 26
3 Realism
(i) Authenticity
(ii) Propinquity and appreciation of location
(iii) Comments over the size of the battlefield
(iv) The importance of personal stories
(v) The importance of artefacts
15.0 60
4 Hardships and horror 6.5 26
5 The moral message 1.7 7
6 Numinous and spiritual aspects 2.7 11
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7 Interpretation 34.8 140

8 Comments about quality of the day out 4.0 16
9 Did not like the site 1.2 5
10 Other 5.7 23
Total 100 387
Note: Total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Hardships and horror

This category included a range of comments relating to the everyday experiences of those
involved in the battles. Visitors to heritage sites are strongly affected by individual stories
and the human aspect does play a prominent role in heritage interpretation. Gatewood and
Cameron (2004) demonstrated how visitors to the battlefield site at Gettysburg (1863) in
the USA were far more impacted by the ‘smaller’ stories of physical hardship and suffering
than bland technical statements of fact and this was a clear feature of the comments
gathered in this study. Visitors were clearly affected by the individual carnage and
suffering:

The awful waste of ordinary human life in the service of powerful Lords and ambitious men.
Most of them had no choice and were just part of the feudal system. They turned up with little
training or weapons and were hacked down . . . (Bosworth, male, 50 –65)

The feeling that ordinary people were forced to fight and did not know what they were fight-
ing for was a common response. One interviewee was affected by the thought that ‘their
families would have been left destitute if they had been killed’ (Bosworth, female, 50–
65). Comments on the uncomfortableness of the armour and heaviness of weapons were
frequent such as the following:

Wearing the armour – just to see how hard it was to live and fight and how uncomfortable it
was. (Bannockburn, male, 40 –49)

These comments do express a depth of response and feeling prompted by the ‘darker’
details of the battlefield story and enhanced greatly by the interpretative orientation of
the sites. At Culloden a 360-degree visual ‘immersion’ film of the battle provided a
highly realistic representation of the gritty physical and emotional reality of conflict. One
respondent commented:
 144 S. Miles

You were able to imagine the noise, sights and smells of the battle. The guns, people screaming,
[the] horses, [the] smell of blood [and] gunsmoke. (Culloden, female, 50–65)

Some of the ‘darker’ aspects of the sites can thus impact upon visitors and particularly with
the last example provide a ‘dark’ sense of realism seldom experienced amongst the often
sanitised world of heritage. Nevertheless, whether these are the expressions of ‘dark tour-
ists’ is debatable. The impression gained by these responses is that they are the result of a
more immediate engagement with the story attached to the site and not the reflections of
those motivated by a desire to seek out the more thanatalogical features of the battle. Visi-
tors do make comments on the hardships and horror of the sites but this is as a result of the
visit and not through any pre-existing motivation to seek out these perspectives. The fact
that comments on this theme were interspersed with a range of reflections relating to
wider aspects of the visit supports this assertion. Moreover, there were no examples of
respondents who were pre-occupied with the more viscerally ‘darker’ aspects of the sites
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at the expense of other themes as represented in Table 5. ‘Darker’ engagement is present

but not a significant feature of the visit.

Numinous and spiritual

Certain comments reflected a deeper awareness of the events and an intangible sense of
place. This is ‘the shiver of contact with ancient sites [bringing] to life their lingering bar-
barity or sanctity’ (Lowenthal, 1985, p. 246) where people feel a sense of spiritual awe or
overpoweringness. This is known as numinosity4 and has elements of eeriness, mystery and
astonishment. It is discussed here in relation to thanatourism in that both are seemingly
irrational with a contradictory sense of repellence and attraction. On the one hand is a
force that inspires dread and tries to repel; on the other hand is a force that enthrals and
tries to entice. Dark tourism sites are at once morbid but also irresistibly enticing to the
visitor. The numen can be seen as a component of thanatourism and places of death and
suffering are thought to have high numen value (Cameron & Gatewood, 2003). Those visi-
tors with thanatoptic motivations are likely to have a high numen-seeking orientation. That
a numen-impulse exists amongst some battlefield visitors is evidenced by Gatewood and
Cameron (2004) and the survey set out to determine whether this was also true at the
four historic sites.5 If a numen-orientation was detected in visitor comments then this
could provide evidence of a dark tourism motivation.
There was no widespread numinous orientation. Much of the deeper experiences at the
sites were gained from the timing of the visit and the weather rather than any intrinsic
characteristics of the sites themselves. The following comment was typical:

Walking around on my own first thing in the morning, the quietness of it and being on my own.
I could really imagine it even though this is contradictory with it being a battle. If there was a
big group it would take away the atmosphere. (Hastings, female, 50 –65)

This echoes Lowenthal’s belief that ‘the felt past is a function of atmosphere as well as
locale’ (Lowenthal, 1985, p. 240). One conclusion could be that the commercial nature
of the ‘attraction’ and the presence of other visitors leads to a diminishing of the ‘shiver
of contact’. One commentator thought Culloden had ‘lost its mystique. It’s unlikely to
get a spiritual experience now because there are far too many people around’ (Culloden,
male, 66+). The fact that only 2.7% of the comments related to this category
supports the assertion that a dark tourism representation amongst visitors is not strongly
represented.
 Journal of Heritage Tourism 145

Conclusion
The survey shows how for these four sites there were a large number of themes identified
from visitor comments but with no one dominating. The visitor experience is thus multi-
faceted with an appreciation of the site as a heritage, not a specifically dark, tourism site.
Tourists are a complicated heterogeneous body and this chimes with the argument of
Slade (2003) who suggests that although people visit places associated with death this
does not necessarily mean they are dark tourists. The findings are also similar to those of
Biran et al. (2011) at Auschwitz who found that, even with this most opaque of thana-
sites, the tourist experience was more in line with that of a mainstream heritage site. It is
likely that despite having elements of dark interpretational intent and methods (as with
the 360 degree ‘total immersion’ battle audio-visual at Culloden), ‘managed’ battlefield
sites have been ‘lightened’ by commercialisation. This study supports the assertion of
Lennon and Foley (2000, p. 23) that much dark tourism is opportunistic and ad hoc in
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nature. The fact that very few of the samples had visited more than twice (Table 1) and
had not visited battlefields in the UK before does suggest a more casual, if not serendipi-
tous, pattern of behaviour. This does not automatically mean that these visitors were not
thanatourists but coupled with the unconvincing qualitative results this study calls for a
more judicious delineation of the ‘dark tourist’.
There is thus little evidence for a thanatoptic experience at visits to the sites surveyed.
Few visitors engage deeply with the sites there being very little difference between the sur-
veyed locations. This does raise the question whether thanatopsis has to involve a deep
engagement. If not, then thanatourists might not need to view death as dark at all and a
wider attitudinal and experiential framework could be applied to define the ‘dark tourist’.
This has recently been discussed by Biran and Poria who assert that ‘awareness is a precon-
dition to perception’ (Biran & Poria, 2012, p. 67). If tourists do not perceive a site as being
dark then they cannot be called ‘dark tourists’. The experience is something different and
Biran and Poria (2012, p. 67) cite studies where the core experience at sites considered dark
was educational or the enjoyment of scenery.
The analysis has attempted to move the debate forward in that whereas many of the pre-
vious studies into dark tourism (as outlined above) have concentrated on visitor motiv-
ations, the current study provides a more experiential understanding of the visitor
experience. An enhanced understanding of the nature of experience at such sites can be
instructive to those charged with designing a heritage attraction. It thus has clear value to
the industry in contributing to an understanding of the ‘customer’ and in correct interpreta-
tional design. The findings from this paper do suggest a number of further areas for
research. This could investigate the relationship between the perceptions of those providing
dark tourism sites and the experience of visitors. A typology of visitors based on experience
might also be drawn up. Further work could also provide a comparison between the experi-
ence at ‘managed’ and ‘unmanaged’ sites and whether ‘darker’ experiences are associated
with less commercialised sites. Finally, the paper’s findings could serve as a springboard
into investigating whether dark experiences are common at wider ‘conflict’ heritage such
as fortifications, military installations, airfields, prison camps and crash/wreck sites.
This study has highlighted the limitations of a strictly supply-side definition of dark
tourism and underlined the need for a sharper analysis of ‘dark’ visitor experiences. It
may be ‘that it is not death or the dead that should be considered, but living people’s per-
ception of them’ (Biran et al., 2011, p. 837). The paper has provided evidence that battle-
field sites result in a variety of experiences not all of which are ‘dark’ and that people’s
perceptions of these places are not always thanatoptic.
 146 S. Miles

Funding
I am grateful to the University of Glasgow (Graduate Travel and Research Awards) and the Crichton
Foundation in Dumfries for financial assistance towards the research costs for this paper.

Notes
1. These descriptions are attributed to Thomas Blom, Chris Rojek and Graham Dann, respectively,
and are discussed in Stone (2006, p. 148).
2. Those with visitor facilities where it is possible to measure visitor admissions.
3. Using the National Readership Survey Social Grade System (Heritage Lottery Fund, 2001).
4. This Latin term is derived from the work of the Theologian Rudolf Otto (1869 –1937) and lit-
erally means ‘a nod or a beckoning from the gods’. Otto reutilised it in the context of the phe-
nomenology of religion.
5. This was a pre-determined question in the survey and the only place where responses from inter-
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viewees were prompted in the questioning (although the word ‘numinous’ was not used).

Notes on Contributor
Dr Stephen Miles is an Affiliate Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow’s Crichton Campus in
Dumfries, Scotland. His research interests include tourism at conflict sites particularly battlefield sites;
dark tourism experiences; and religious and secular pilgrimage.

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