War tourism

Van de Velde took to sea in 1653 in a small boat to observe a naval battle between the Dutch and the English, making many sketches on the spot.

[2] During the Crimean War, tourists led by Mark Twain visited the wrecked city of Sevastopol – he even scolded his travel mates for walking off with souvenir shrapnel.

Expecting an easy Union victory, the wealthy elite of nearby Washington, including congressmen and their families, had come to picnic and watch the battle.

According to the 1913 Thomas Cook travel guide, the rising popularity of Waterloo as a tourist attraction led to the appearance of numerous charlatans claiming to have participated in the battle.

British intelligence officer Hugh Pollard described the Ypres Salient as a holy ground due to the large number of Entente graves in the region.

A 1936 study brought to light the fact that the majority of war tourists during the period were driven by curiosity or were paying homage to their deceased relatives.

[10] Today, WWI battlefield tourism attracts tens of thousands of tourists to former war zones on the Western Front and in the Dardanelles for example.

[13] Former security professional Rick Sweeney formed War Zone Tours in 2008, while another of the companies operating in this market was begun by a former The New York Times journalist Nicholas Wood.

The desire for the experience and the documentation and photographing of it through social networking could be helping to increase war tourism, according to a Tel Aviv-based journalist.

[18] According to retired Israel Defense Forces colonel Kobi Marom, who leads tours of the war zone across the Israeli border, tourists are interested in seeing the conflict and go "crazy" when they learn that they are probably being observed by Al-Qaeda militants.

The trips are organized by Basij, an offshoot of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which enlists the travelers normally in mosques, schools or universities.

The trips, which are officially called "Tours for the Travelers of Light" (Persian: اردوهای راهیان نور), are low-cost and are taken by bus under poor safety conditions.