ROBBEN ISLAND

Robben Island



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Overview of the Project and Thesis

Overview

The topic that will be discussed throughout this research paper is Robben Island. Furthermore, it will take a closer look at Dark Tourism and how it relates to Robben Island. It will touch on why people visit, who visits and what is the touristic experience. This Island is located off South Africa in Cape Town, is named after the early Dutch colonists, who renamed Robbeneiland, literally the city of seals. It is easy to see why: a large population of sea lions and penguins in Africa will welcome you just landed on this beautiful island (Klerck, 1973). Today, Robben Island is primarily a destination tourist attraction, visited in one day because of its small size (five kilometers in diameter), but used to house a maximum security prison, the same one where Nelson Mandela the former President of South African served 18 of 27 years in prison (Deacon, 1999, p. 41-53).

Thesis Statement

People visit Robben Island to learn about the life and history of Nelson Mandela and the political movement against apartheid. Although the tour, of Robben Island for most tourist ends up being fascinating, it also leaves people with a somber and harrowing experience.

Robben Island

Introduction

Visiting sites associated in some way with death (whether cemetery, catacomb, battlefield, or the location of a notorious murder) is undeniably part of the tourist itinerary in almost any country one can think of, and an increasingly significant element in the development of heritage tourism. Former sites of penalty and imprisonment have become a well-liked tourist experience as ancient prisons transform into heritage sites or museums. Robben Island is one of such prominent sites. Located off the coast of Cape Town, it was declared world heritage site by UNESCO (1999). Although, it categorizes as heritage tourism and eco-tourism due to the difference in interpretation, but, the historians and theorists will predominately categorized it under dark tourism. The research paper will try to develop an understanding about why and who visit this small island, and what is the touristic experience.

Discussion

Dark Tourism

Voyage to and experience of locations linked with disaster, death and the apparent ghastly is an increasing omnipresent characteristic within the modern tourism scenery. Certainly, the dark tourist look, whether, for memorial, entertainment or education includes people visiting the 1914-1918 battlegrounds of the Western border in Europe, where non-spontaneous aggression and hostility brings back to the existence by tour guides narrating accounts of bravery, great courage, personal torment and tragedy. Likewise, tourists visit Ground Zero, New York, which witnessed carnage, and mass murder on 11 September 2011; afterward they get kitsch mementos of the former World Trade Centre. Dark Tourism refers to these various tourist activities, collectively. It rotate around some site, exhibition or attraction linked with tragedy, killings or anguish.

A vital facet of dark tourism is the transformation of death into commodity products for modern-day consumption; however, both the demand and supply for dark tourism was ...