Into the dark – dark stories in the cities of Brežice and Krško in Slovenia as a basis for the future dark tourism products

Abstract

Purpose

Dark tourism has a very long heritage. Compared to the rest of the world, dark tourism in Slovenia is very poorly developed. The theme is therefore a novelty in Slovenia as well as in the Slovenian professional and scientific literature. The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe dark stories of two small cities – Brežice and Krško – in Slovenia.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper brings ethnographical approach based on the in-depth literature analysis, existing documentation in museums (old newspapers articles, photographs) and fieldwork in Brežice and Krško which contained the method of unstructured interviews with four curators in The Posavje Museum Brežice, The City Museum of Krško and The National Museum of Contemporary History – Brestanica Branch as well as the method of observation with participation in a guided tour of Posavje “witches” in The City Museum of Krško and The Brežice Cemetery. The information for the research was also obtained by conducting ten unstructured interviews with the residents who live nearby “dark places” or are still connected to them.

Findings

The paper provides practical results as 14 dark stories related to the castles, wars, accidents, murders, paranormal activities and witchcraft were found. These stories could be incorporated into dark tourism.

Research limitations/implications

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. The results refer to a particular area of research.

Practical implications

The paper includes implications for the development of a new dark tourism product on a basis of dark stories found in the research area.

Originality/value

The paper fulfills need to identify and study dark stories that can be integrated in dark tourism in Slovenia.

Citation

Kužnik, L. and Veble, N. (2018), "Into the dark – dark stories in the cities of Brežice and Krško in Slovenia as a basis for the future dark tourism products", International Journal of Tourism Cities, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 40-53. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJTC-05-2017-0031