How to promote dark tourism among Gen Z travellers: a motivational perspective

Purpose Promoting dark tourism among Gen Z tourists is an important socio-economic strategy that offers significant economic and educational benefits to dark tourism site organizations and society at large. Upon the motivational approach, this research aims to examine the motivations that drive Gen Z’s intention to visit dark tourism places and the sources of those motives. Design/methodology/approach Drawn from classical motivational theories in psychology and consumer research, this study treats dark experience as outcome-focused motivation, engaging experience as process-focused motivation and emotional solidarity as self-concept motivation. Based on the expectancy-value model and optimal-arousal theory, the authors further investigate the roles of perceived destination image, social media marketing efforts and e-word of mouth (e-WOM) in influencing such motivations. The conceptual model was tested based on quantitative data from 545 Gen Z potential travellers. Findings The findings indicate that the motivations for both dark experiences and engaging experiences are influenced by EWOM and both cognitive and affective destination images. In addition, eWOM also demonstrates a strong influence on emotional solidarity. Meanwhile, marketing efforts of dark tourism sites through social media show no impact on the dark experience motivation and a weak effect on the motive of engaging experience and emotional solidarity. Although all three motivations, including dark experience, engaging experience and emotional solidarity, significantly and positively drive intention to visit dark tourism sites, the impact of engaging experience is the weakest. Originality/value This research provides a fresh perspective in explaining the intention to visit a destination in general and a dark tourism site in particular while providing insights into the impacts of various marketing stimuli on visiting intention – from the motivational approach.