Chinese Millennials’ Perceptions and Motives of Dark Tourism

Abstract

[eng] Dark tourism, as a behavior that focuses on the tourist attraction associated with large-scale dark events, is different from other types of tourism activities in terms of its perception and motivation. As a potential major group of tourism consumers, Chinese millennials have their unique generational characteristics that have led to very different travel preferences and perception and decision-making processes. However, subject to the current level of tourism development and research in China, there is still a large gap in the study on millennials' perception and decision-making processes of dark tourism. This project aims to describe the cognitive level and behavioral preferences of Chinese millennials on dark tourism, and explore the statistical significance of the five motives of learning, socialization, leisure, emotional response and novelty. Another purpose of this study is to systematically summarizes millennials’ reaction to various motives as well the interrelationships among the motives, at the end we points out the possible effects of those motives on the subsequent behavioral intentions.