Virtual Dark Tourism

Death is a great unifier, not only for one who is in grief but also those who have similar shared values (i.e., tourist demand for visiting death sites). In this sense, visitation to the death sites denotes its importance to people's lives. However, as types of death sites are distinctively different from one to another, death sites as tourist attraction remains a segmented target market. This chapter looks at some viewpoints for making death sites not only for a segmented target market, which leads to discourse of virtual dark tourism (VDT) formation. With sound branding coupled with augmented reality (AR) as tools to support the claims of virtual dark tourism, death sites, which are considered exclusive touristic market offerings, presumably could be consumed by more target markets. Several issues and direction for future research are discussed.