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World War I cemetery touched up in anticipation of centennial crowds
DestinationsThe Tyne Cot cemetery sweeps gently down the slope, the nearly 12,000 headstones aligned in solemn rows of gleaming white. Beyond the walls stretch Flanders Fields, dotted by red farmhouse roofs. For the stage of some of World War I’s worst carnage, the scene is tranquility itself — but over the whisper of wind floats [...]
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Auschwitz visited by 1.43 million people in 2012, a record number in its 65-year history
DestinationsThe Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site in southern Poland says it registered 1.43 million visitors last year, a record number in its 65-year history as a place of Holocaust remembrance. For several years now, the grounds of the former Nazi death camp have registered record numbers of visitors. In 2011, there were 1.4 million visitors from across [...]
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Sri Lankan army opens a sea-side resort on site where it committed crimes against humanity
DestinationsA campaign group for human rights has criticised “tasteless” holiday accommodation built on the site of Sri Lanka’s “killing fields”.
The lagoon of Nanthi Kadal, on the island’s north coast, was, in 2009, the scene of atrocities in the Sri Lankan arm…
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The Disneyfication of war tourism in Sri Lanka wrongly represents one region’s unpleasant reality
DestinationsThe tourists have travelled hundreds of kilometers to see this underground bunker, once home to the most feared man in Sri Lanka: the leader of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Velupillai Prabhakaran… But while these guided tours offer locals a rare glance into the inner workings of the Tigers’ de facto state [...]
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Will opening tyrant Robert Mugabe’s old home to tourists help Zimbabwe’s nascent tourism industry?
DestinationsThe numbers show that Zimbabwe tourism is picking up. According to the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority,tourism receipts increased from $634m in 2010 to $664m last year. The big boost is from Chinese exhibitors, reflecting the marketing push to attract vistors from Asia. But will adding Robert Mugabe’s old residence to the tourist trail help? Township tourism has [...]
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War tourism brings foreigners to hike Nepal’s now-peaceful Guerrilla Trek
DestinationsA new trekking trail to attract more foreigners by allowing them to retrace the memory of Nepal’s decade-long Maoist insurgency has been launched by former rebel chief Prachanda to rebuild the country’s economy. The ambitious project ‘The Guerrilla Trek’ – a 19-day hike – follows trails where thousands of Maoist guerrillas once dug trenches and [...]
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Communist-built bomb bunkers are transformed into hostels in Albania
DestinationsFor some, they are an ugly, podlike reminder of Albania’s paranoid past that should be allowed to disappear unmourned. For others, the communist-era concrete bunkers that litter the small Adriatic state are a piece of cultural heritage that should not be lost. Decades on from the heyday of the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, the domed [...]
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Hotel and rental home occupancies in Turkish border province shoot up due to Syrian conflict
RoomsThe Syrian conflict has largely driven tourists away from Turkey’s border province of Antakya, but hotels are full due to an influx of journalists that some say is too good to last. “Hotels are making profits out of the Syrian crisis. We are currently 70 to 80 percent full even on the worst day,” said [...]
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Post-war Sri Lanka’s tourism boom, for war artifacts
DestinationsToday triumphalism abounds among Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhala population. The army found the pool in 2009, drained it, then invited tourists in. Now they come by the thousands. At nearby Vallipunam, tourists view the torture chambers with their smelly, open latrines, and walls on which inmates scratched poignant notes, many of them expressing faith in [...]
