The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted the global tourism industry, effecting the livelihoods of millions of tourism workers and disrupting host communities. Current research in tourism management has focused on understanding the economic, social and political impacts of the pandemic. This professional perspective aims to examine operational adaptations that businesses in the fright tourism industry have adopted under the COVID-19 pandemic circumstances. The study collated industry association press releases, undertaking content analysis to examine the changes businesses employed to adapt during the pandemic. Findings suggest that businesses made a variety of operational changes, such as changing queueing, diversification of props and changes to make-up hygiene, allowing these businesses to survive pandemic imperatives.
In fright tourism, an unusual combination of human emotions such as fun and fear are experienced by tourists through activities such as haunted house visits and ghost tours. This study explores advertising materials for fright tourism attractions, including how business owners design
them, and how potential visitors respond to them. The study aimed to examine how fright tourism attractions use text and images to convey the emotions customers may experience at the attraction, and affective response generated in visitors to these advertising materials, specifically tourist
brochures. Data were obtained through interviews with business owners of fright tourism attractions and focus groups of potential visitors to discuss fright tourism advertising brochure design, and determine what affective responses were intended and subsequently generated (or not) by the
tourism brochures. Findings from the research include that emotions and feelings are ambiguous terms that are often used interchangeably, and generic horror imagery is often used to communicate emotions through fright tourism brochures; however, perceptions of horror are highly subjective.
This study helps broaden our understanding of the emotions experienced at fright tourism attractions, and how those emotions can be communicated through advertising materials.
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