Challenges and Opportunities Regarding the Sustainable Development of Dark Tourism in Romania

Dark tourism has received growing interest from both practitioners and scientists in the last decades. Romania has a rich tourism potential in this area. Therefore, this chapter aims to map the dark tourism destinations in the country and to analyze the role of storytelling in promoting dark tourism. In the framework of the chapter, we used the analytical–synthetic method in order to identify dark tourism destinations in Romania. Also, qualitative research was conducted using four open-ended questions to the representatives of the identified dark sites to analyze the strategy for promoting dark tourism destinations in Romania. The results showed that although a dark tourism offer exists, this type of tourism is not encouraged at a national level, and it is regarded with caution mainly due to the lack of understanding of the concept. These findings may be useful to tourism policymakers from Romania in order to increase the visibility of dark tourism destinations and to keep up with the current trends emerging on the global tourism scene.