Halloween, the fall holiday and $13.5 billion industry , lurks around the corner.
Authors
- Ann-Kathrin McLean
School Director & Assistant Professor, Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies, Royal Roads University
- Juan Claudio Benavides del Carpio
Master of Arts in Tourism Management student, Royal Roads University
But what's behind the more than 11,000 acres of pumpkin patches across Canada and $3.9 billion in consumer spending on candy alone?
Halloween has ancient origins in the pre-Christian religion and practices of the Celts . It was custom to honour the transitions between the seasons and harvest, acknowledge the thin veil between different planes of existence and also to commemorate the dead.
Modern-day commercialization has shifted how people experience Halloween, but the spirits of the dead continue to play a significant role in the occasion and the time of year.
The day's appeal and its marketability extends beyond a one-day "holiday." Many people are drawn to carefully curated encounters, seeking thrilling yet sanitized experiences that allow them to engage with the macabre and mortality from a safe distance.
Consequently, Halloween's commercial success in commodifying dread and the monstrous can be analyzed alongside broader "dark tourism" - an umbrella term that explores tourism involvement with sites of death, disaster and a difficult heritage.
Anthropologist Philip Stone notes that a range of motivations exist for promoting engagement with death, disaster and the macabre : for example, political reasons or remembrance, education, entertainment or economic gain.
So how should we think about worldwide Halloween-related attractions that not only seek to entertain but also promote interpretation and engagement with sites marketed as scary, which often have genuinely dark pasts?
Prisons, forts
For example, a tourism attraction at Eastern State Penitentiary - a former prison in Philadelphia - markets itself as a Halloween festival of epic proportions .
The onetime prison was an 11-acre institution that was the first jail in the United States to introduce the practice of solitary confinement in the late 1800s.
In the late '90s, the property switched gears, launched "terror behind the walls" as an annual haunted house and then rebranded as " Halloween Nights ."
The facility notes that proceeds from Halloween Nights benefit a mission to preserve the site and advance "public understanding of the criminal justice system and its impact on the lives of those affected by it [and] to inspire a more just future," including through public education and exhibits .
Another example is Fort Henry in Kingston, Ont.
Although Fort Henry was never a battlefield site, it was the site of an 1838 execution . It was also used as a prison for combatants captured during the 1837-38 Rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada and again during the First and Second World Wars for "civilian enemy aliens."
Today, coffin rides and a monster shooting range are part of the Heritage Sites tourist attraction called Fort Fright , which simulates a haunted attraction and experience throughout the month of October leading up to Halloween. Historical educational programming exists through the year.
These types of attractions are examples of fright tourism , when people seek scares and thrills for pleasure at a destination that may have a sinister history or is promoted as having one.
Other forts have also offered similar experiences timed to Halloween .
Urban ghost stories
Urban ghost stories also continue to spark interest, both at Halloween and at other times.
The Lost Souls of Gastown Tour , a performance-theatre experience in Vancouver, is one example. Visitors participating in the tour immerse themselves in the city's stories of crime, disaster, historical figures and hidden urban spaces.
Victoria Ghost Walking Tours offers a tour touching on "horrible deeds" and other eerie experiences for folks on Vancouver Island, as do other cities.
Important questions raised
Why do people seek fear if it's associated with danger? Why do tourists travel for entertainment or fun to places with tragic or apparently haunted pasts, sometimes associated with horrible, disturbing or traumatic events?
Although fear is fundamentally a warning mechanism that alerts us to potential danger, it also generates the release of adrenaline. In settings where people perceive themselves to be safe, this tension between threat and security can become an appealing experience .
Stone analyzes dark tourism along a spectrum. The "darkest" end of the spectrum is characterized by experiences pertaining to education and authentic sites where death and suffering happened. The "lighter" end is "heritage-centric," with an entertainment orientation perceived as inauthentic and more associated with tourism.
Many Halloween-themed sites and experiences are arguably situated on the lighter end of the dark tourism spectrum and marketed as entertainment. As mentioned, some are linked to real experiences or engage with stories or sites associated with death, social control, crime and disaster.
Ethical boundaries?
Researchers studying dark tourism in prison museums have noted that people's interactions in these spaces demonstrate that "not all dark experiences are equally 'dark' to all visitors." This means that sites cannot dictate how their curated experiences will be received.
This suggests it's important to pay close attention to the ethical boundaries between interpretation and entertainment.
When these boundaries are blurred, the dignity of victims can be compromised while the educational and commemorative value of historic sites may be diminished. This raises important questions about the responsibilities of tourism providers when presenting difficult and often painful histories, and, as Stone also examines, their relationship to political ideology.
Some argue the boundary between a tourism attraction and the site of a traumatic past can become nuanced - for example, when former prisons, as attraction sites, provide educational resources for visitors .
All attractions situated along the dark tourism spectrum, whether they lean toward the "lighter" or "darker" end, must carefully navigate the line between respectful engagement and exploitation. This is particularly relevant for Halloween tourism experiences that draw upon stories or sites that intersect with crime, death or tragedy.
When attractions encourage visitors to engage with local history, they should not glorify perpetrators , sensationalize violence or trivialize suffering.
In these cases, exhibit operators should prioritize historically grounded narratives that provide context, acknowledge victims and encourage reflection. This may be a daunting challenge.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
