Purpose – This paper reports the empirical investigation on the causal relationship between perceived importance of dark tourism product and tour operators’ action behavior. The tour operator’s perceived importance of dark tourism attributes and how they translate their perception into action behavior was explored. The lack of support promotional activities from the travel agencies are probably the main reasons this product has yet reached its potential. Method – The sample populations were the tour operators that selling inbound and domestic tour packages in Malaysia and the required information was gathered through a self-administered questionnaire based on the purposive judgmental sampling methodology. Findings – Through a series of analyses, the results show that despite the availability of dark tourism products in Malaysia, tour operators have not aggressively promoted these sites. Minimal business profit, diseconomies of scale demand and limited resources was found to influence their unenthusiastic behaviour. Originality – This study provides useful insights into the attributes, the perceptions and evaluations of the dark tourism products by the tour operators. The outcome of this study can be used as a guide for the tourism industry policy makers to develop more efficient marketing and positioning strategies.

中文翻译：

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黑暗旅游业：这是马来西亚旅游业的增长部分吗？

目的–本文报告了关于黑暗旅游产品的感知重要性与旅游经营者的行为之间因果关系的实证研究。探索了旅游经营者对黑暗旅游业属性的感知重要性，以及他们如何将其感知转化为行动行为。旅行社缺乏支持促销活动可能是该产品尚未发挥其潜力的主要原因。方法–样本人群是在马来西亚销售入境和国内旅游套票的旅行社，并根据有目的的判断性抽样方法，通过自我管理的问卷收集了所需的信息。调查结果–通过一系列分析，结果表明，尽管马来西亚提供了深色旅游产品，旅游经营者并未积极推广这些网站。人们发现，最低的商业利润，规模需求不经济以及有限的资源会影响他们的不热情行为。独创性–该研究为旅行社对黑暗旅游产品的属性，感知和评估提供了有用的见解。这项研究的结果可以作为旅游业决策者制定更有效的营销和定位策略的指南。