ABSTRACT
Most tourism is undertaken for the purpose of pleasure and enjoyment, with other motivations including self-improvement, family and personal contact, religious obligations, gaining esteem, and excitement. The last noted motivation includes the desire for thrills and challenges from the tourism experience, and in some cases, this can be obtained from visiting zones of conflict. This chapter proposes a conceptual model for examining this form of tourism by placing conflict zone tourist visitation within a three-fold framework relating to the timing of the visit and the stage of conflict being experienced at the chosen destination. It is argued that seeking a ‘flow’ experience (Csikszentmihályi, 19901) lies behind the majority of visits in the ‘during-conflict’ stage, but that the motivations of such participants also vary according to the stage of conflict and personal characteristics of the tourists involved.
