Pompeii is an important example not only because of its notoriety as a “dark tourist site”—a site associated with death and trauma—but also because it is one of the most visited UNESCO sites in the world, with approximately three million visitors per year.

Yes, Pompeii is widely considered one of the most famous and visited examples of dark tourism, which involves traveling to sites associated with death, tragedy, or disaster. While it is also a premier archaeological and historical site, the primary draw for many of the millions of annual visitors is the catastrophic nature of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The most poignant "dark" elements are the plaster casts of the victims, which capture the final, agonizing moments of the residents as they were encased in volcanic ash. These figures serve as a visceral reminder of human mortality and the suddenness of the disaster. While some argue that the "darkness" has been sanitized by time—making it more of an educational "ancient history" experience than a modern tragedy like Chernobyl or Auschwitz—the ethical core remains the same: the commodification of a site where thousands of people lost their lives. For many, the appeal of Pompeii lies in the "memento mori" aspect, allowing them to contemplate the fragility of civilization while walking the eerily preserved streets of a city frozen in the midst of its own destruction.