Dark tourism: Exploring tourist's experience at the Cape Coast Castle, Ghana

Abstract

This paper investigates tourists’ experience of the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. Using a phenomenological research design, we explored the experiences of the tourist who visited the Castle. We used data from the Tripadvisor website and analyzed it thematically. The findings show that dark tourism experience is conceptualized from cognitive and emotional perspectives. Furthermore, the results show that tourists’ experiences are shaped and co-constructed with the tourist guards and the artefacts available at the sites. Additionally, our results show tourists who visit dark tourist sites do not experience only anxiety and sorrow but excitement as well. The results also show that tourists who are of African descent see the Cape Coast Castle as a symbol of their identity and these tourists adopt the Castle as part of their personal identity. The implications of the findings are discussed at the end of the paper. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd