ABSTRACT
Although I have been researching Dracula tourism (the visiting of places in Transylvania associated with the Count Dracula of fiction and cinema) for more than a decade, I have not previously examined it in terms of dark tourism since, to my mind, there was little direct connection between such tourism and death or human suffering. However, conceptions of dark tourism are continually evolving and the phenomenon is now increasingly defined in terms of the ‘macabre’, meaning that dark tourism now embraces a wider range of sites and experiences which are not directly associated with death. I wish to begin this chapter by considering the changing definitions of dark tourism, with particular reference to the notion of the macabre as a criterion for defining the phenomenon. I then want to examine Dracula tourism in Romania from the perspectives of both supply and demand. In terms of supply I argue that there is almost no deliberate provision of tourist experiences based on Dracula, so that identifying Dracula tourism as a form of dark tourism is problematic. When looking at demand, however, I argue that Dracula tourism is a heterogeneous phenomenon which encompasses a wide range of interests and expectations among tourists.
