Residents’ experiential culture towards dark pilgrimage tourism: conceptualization, scale development and validation

Prior studies have ignored resident-centered measurement tools in dark tourism, so we developed and validated a reliable scale to measure residents’ experiential culture toward dark pilgrimage tourism (RECDPT). Although an increase in dark tourism to Asian destinations associated with death and tragedy has gained popularity, scant attention has been paid to the cultural impact on residents’ experiences. This necessitates a new scale that measures residents’ cultural perspectives in five aspects: tangible dark heritage, intangible dark heritage, religious rites, customs, and community practices. Underpinned by social representation theory, this paper employed a three-phase scale development process involving questions that measure the new construct. This process examined the scale through a procedure that included generating scale items and developing measurement instruments. Seventeen items of RECDPT demonstrated strong internal consistency, axial and repeatability, and construct and nomological validity. Results indicated a significant association between RECDPT and residents’ experience value in pilgrimage tourism communities. This paper presents a community-centered approach to managing dark pilgrimage experiences.