Exploring Dark Tourism at Sendang Senjoyo: Synergy between History, Mythology, and Culture Towards Sustainable Tourism

Abstract

The increasing attention to dark tourism in recent years has led to a trend among academics to identify specific forms of tourism. Dark tourism studies seek to develop dark tourism within the tourism business, prioritizing social values. Dark tourism is closely related to historical and cultural tourism. The urgency of researching Sendang Senjoyo has never been scientifically explored due to its rich history, mythology, and culture, despite the many traditional rituals and spiritual narratives that remain alive in the community. This potential makes Sendang Senjoyo a candidate for a unique, local wisdom-based dark tourism destination. It is hoped that this research will provide an overview of the concept of dark tourism towards sustainable tourism in Semarang. The research aims toexplore in depth and measure the interest in dark tourism in tourist visits to Sendang Senjaya.p methodresearchThis study uses a mixed method approach with a Sequential Exploratory model where this method will obtain more comprehensive, valid, reliable and objective data so as to obtain a better understanding. Through the initial stage using qualitative methods and the next stage using quantitative methods, using the help of Atlas.ti software and Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS) with the help of SmartPLS as a tool to test the structural model. The results of the study show that Narratives about History and Figures involved in dark events are key elements defined as Dark Tourism. Dark Tourism has a very strong and positive influence on Sustainable Tourism in Sendang Senjaya. This is evidenced by the high Path Coefficient value (0.930) and a very significant P-Value value (0.000), as well as a very large Effect Size (f2) (1.559). Customer Experience does not have a significant effect on Sustainable Tourism in Sendang Senjaya. This is evidenced by the P-Value value which is far above the significance limit of 0.05 (0.973) and the Effect Size (f2) which is very small (0.000). Model Prediction Accuracy (R-Square): The R2 value of 0.868 indicates that the Customer Experience (CEX) and Dark Tourism (DTO) variables are able to explain 86.8% of the variance in the Sustainable Tourism (STO) variable. This value is classified as having strong prediction accuracy. The most important implication of this study is that the Dark Tourism (DTO) aspect inherent in Sendang Senjaya is the main determining factor for the sustainability of tourism (Sustainable Tourism) at that location. The focus of destination management to achieve sustainability should be directed at strengthening and wisely managing the Dark Tourism narrative, while the general customer experience (CEX) has a minimal contribution to the sustainability aspect.