LAUSR

Abstract Dark tourism has recently garnered significant interest as a niche market on an academic level, witnessed by the increasing number of papers on the subject. Despite various attempts having been made to categorize different types of dark site, most of these have been place-dependent, therefore overshadowing the role of the cultural intermediary at a dark site. This conceptual research attempts to offer a different categorization of dark attractions based on the Netflix documentary series Dark Tourist. The aim is to show that, given the role played by the cultural intermediary in dark storytelling, some dark attractions are basically person-dependent and award little importance to the place, which opens up new marketing options within the dark attraction spectrum. Six fundamental roles of dark intermediaries are identified, ranging from typical tour guides to the villains themselves; that is, from light to darker person-dependent attractions.