Attempting to summarise his expertise in dark tourism, James Sultana quotes the title of a bestselling book – Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can’t Look Away.

“If there’s a road accident, you can be sure you’ll be stuck in traffic. And it’s not because the road is blocked but because everyone will drive slowly to see if there’s blood on the road,” Mr Sultana says.

Dark tourism works on the same concept. “It’s about travelling to sites associated with death and suffering,” he explains, during our meeting near Valletta’s church of Ta’ Ġieżu, beneath a sculpture of skull and bones.

It is an academic field, which has only recently gained significant attention. Mr Sultana heard the term a couple of years ago and got so hooked he is now reading for a doctorate in dark tourism at the Institute for Tourism, Travel and Culture at the University of Malta.

As a widower, struggling with grief, he found the subject an ideal way to channel his sorrow.

They represent places where people were punished, suffered or died

“We need to reflect about death and society these days makes it difficult; we are constantly trying to ignore it.”

Most, he says, are taken aback when he tells them his area of expertise because they fear it has something to do with the occult. “This is absolutely not the case,” he chuckles. “It is a combination of history, art, anthropology, politics and psychology of society.”

Popular international dark tourism sites include the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, the Alcatraz Prison and Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. Even the wreck of the Costa Concordia drew the crowds after it ran aground off the coast of Tuscany.

Another popular destination is the site of 9/11 World Trade Centre, which recently faced criticism when it opened a museum offering tasteless souvenirs, such as a cuddly Search and Rescue Plush Dog and a cheese platter with the map of the US and heart symbols marking the spots where the hijacked planes crashed.

Tourists’ fascination with death is nothing new, he says. “Think of the gladiators at the Roman Coliseum or the sacrificial religious rites of the Maya.”

In the Middle Ages, pilgrims travelled to tombs, sites of religious martyrdom and public executions.

“The ruins of Pompeii have been a travel destination for 250 years, for example, and they still are,” he adds. The lava-covered volcano was perhaps the original dark tourism site.

“They are termed ‘dark’ because, obviously, there is no joy in these places or, at least, there shouldn’t be. They represent places where people were punished, suffered or died,” he points out.

In Malta, there are several sites that can be classified under the umbrella of dark tourism.

The Hypogeum.

Mr Sultana starts listing: the War Museum; the Hypogeum; the pre-19th century churches; St John’s Co-Cathedral’s memorial tombstones; the Inquisitors Palace; the Mdina Dungeons; and the several cemeteries dotting the island.

“The National Geographic magazine last October listed the Msida Bastion Cemetery as one of Europe’s loveliest cemeteries,” he notes.

Even cultural events such as the Good Friday processions can be classified as dark tourism.

“Besides their religious value, they are also fascinating to tourists interested in the macabre as they depict suffering.”

Inquisitors Palace. Photos: viewingmalta.com

Travellers have different reasons for being interested in such sites: for some it is catharsis, the search for answers, for others it is about facing a heritage that hurts and for others it is mere curiosity.

What is certain is that they attract numbers: in 2011, 1.4 million people visited Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Poland.

The London Dungeons attract about a million tourists a year.

According to Philip Stone, who runs the Institute for Dark Tourism Research at the University of Central Lancashire, “dark tourism can shine a critical light on the social reality of death”.

“What is crucial is that when people visit these places, there is great respect to the site. Dark tourism has to be ethical tourism,” Mr Sultana says.