BUI Thanh Huong    Department   Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University  College of Sustainability and Tourism    Position   Professor
Research Period	2015/04～2018/03
Research Topic	The potential of war heritage sites as educational and touristic attractions in Japan: comparative studies with five relevant countries
Research Type	Individual Research
Research Division	KAKENHI Research
Consignor	Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Research Program Type	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
KAKENHI Grant No.	15H03149
Responsibility	Research Contributor
Representative Person	YOSHIDA Kaori
Details	Based on the data collected from fieldwork at war-related sites and museums, interviews with site managers, tourism bureau officials, travel agents and site visitors, the project has investigated the complexity of war heritage sites as both historical education and attractive tourism destinations, by incorporating temporal, spatial, and ideological/intentional dimensions. It has successfully elaborated the symbiosis between historical education and international tourism by comparing war heritage sites from the 20th century’s major wars. Our findings highlight the complexity of using war heritage sites for war narrative formation in the context of contemporary international tourism, revealing four themes aligned in two pairs, tourism-education and war-peace, which are intertwined with the historical context of each site. This project also stresses that the exploration of the meaning and motivations of dark tourism once again became important in the world of academia and popular media.