Dark City Tours: Corruption and Organised Crime as a Guided Tour Business
Behind-the-scenes scandal tours โ walking routes that connect the history of corruption with real locations across the city.
The business model is built around walking or coach tours that guide visitors through locations connected to documented corruption cases, organised crime or political scandals. The guide combines the roles of investigative journalist and storyteller โ all content must be verifiable from public sources, newspaper archives and court records to remain legally defensible. Each stop on the route has a specific story, a named individual and an outcome. The model operates on a per-person payment basis, with groups typically ranging from five to fifteen participants. Revenue is seasonally sensitive and heavily dependent on media visibility of current scandals. Start-up investment is relatively low for a walking format, higher for a coach-based format. Legal preparation and careful content selection are critical โ the content must be ethically justifiable and factually unimpeachable.
Traditional tour operators focus on heritage sites and tourist icons. The backstory of political scandals, criminal networks and corruption cases remains largely uncharted โ despite sustained and growing interest in this type of content across media and online platforms.
๐Globally growing dark tourism segment
Dark tourism is, according to analyst reports from Coherent Market Insights and Grand View Research, one of the few travel segments showing consistent global growth. Demand for authentic, provocative experiences is particularly strong among younger travellers in the UK.
