In recent years, dark tourism, with its themes of death and disaster, has aroused considerable interest in domestic and foreign academia and become an important domain in international tourism academic research. However, there are still some fundamental theoretical problems in this field that have not been completely solved. In response, this paper systematically examines the concept and connotations of dark tourism domestically and internationally and redefines dark tourism from the perspectives of both narrow sense and broad sense. In order to further distinguish the characteristics of different types of dark tourism, this paper constructs the type spectrum of dark tourism from three dimensions: the influence intensity of dark events, the time interval since dark events have happened, and the spatial distance from the place where the dark event has occurred; dark tourism is then classified into seven different types. Among them, six colors are employed in the dark tourism type spectrum (darkest-darker-dark-light-lighter-lightest; Stone, 2006). Transitional (dark) tourism is a new type of dark tourism proposed in this study. This paper then comprehensively compares the similarities and differences between dark tourism and red tourism from three aspects: tourism subject, tourism object, and development driving force. The appropriateness of the term “dark tourism” is discussed academically, and the alternative concept of “Mose Lvyou (in Chinese)” is proposed creatively. At the same time, this paper analyzes the tourist portrait and motivation spectrum of dark tourists from the perspective of demand so as to accurately determine the real identity of dark tourists. Results show that dark tourists are more likely to be female and young people than conventional tourists. Dark tourists are also more likely to be interested in dark events. It may be concluded that dark tourists are more emotionally and educationally involved in the process of sightseeing. Meanwhile, according to the chromaticity of darkness, dark tourism visitors’ motivation is divided into core motivation, transitional motivation, and peripheral motivation. The paper further explores the types of dark tourism landscape from the perspective of supply and divides them into three categories: natural dark tourism landscape, humanistic dark tourism landscape, and natural-humanistic combined dark tourism landscape. In addition, the “darkness attenuation curve of dark tourism destination” is proposed for the first time. On this basis, the paper suggests that attention should be paid to the authenticity of dark heritage and ethical and moral issues in the development of dark tourism destinations in the future. This study is expected to contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of dark tourism and provides useful insights into the construction of a relevant theoretical framework.
Keywords：dark tourism;tourist behavior;tourist motivation;destination management;theoretical construction