Crime Tourism | France 2 | Envoyé Spécial

This form of tourism is one of the latest trends of the summer. Crime scenes, cemetery tours, a walk in the footsteps of a serial killer… the list of locations with a bloody history just goes on getting longer. Guides specialise in it and the tourists are queuing up. In Paris new circuits invite the tourist to discover the capital’s neighbourhoods through the scandal stories that have studded its history. Such tourism has existed in the United States for many years. In Louisiana, the annual commemoration of the death of the bandit couple Bonny and Clyde has become an attraction. Fairground, museum and folklore draw thousands of families. In Dallas more than a million visitors a year walk the spot where President Kennedy was assassinated. Guides make it their speciality and each has his own version… his own truth! And the tourists can play at would-be detectives. Sometimes this form of dark tourism crosses a line: in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Dahmer Tour is sparking a debate. It offers tourists the opportunity to follow the trail of one of America’s most heinous criminals. Where is the line between historical curiosity and voyeurism? Should marketing benefit from death and suffering? How are the families stricken by these tragedies affected by such commercial exploitation? In the United States and in France we followed some of these crime vacationers.