Creating Attractions: Money as Motivation
After looking into haunted tourism, I discovered that it is an industry, which makes money the driving force behind it. Consider haunted hotels; before haunted tourism became a major market, their stories about hauntings were kept in the dark (or didn’t exist at all?). “Some people have told me they would never stay at the hotel again… in terms of a business plan, we would not promote ourselves as a haunted hotel,” said Rod Davies, a proprietor of Gosforth Hall Hotel (An Inspectre calls). Now that people are increasingly interested in spending the night in a haunted hotel, the stories surface (or are created?) because “they’re good for business.”
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“Corporate America has embraced the haunted house industry with sponsorships in the tens of millions of dollars,” (America Haunts). In fact, the haunted attraction industry rakes in approximately 300 million dollars in a given year. Consider the West Virginia State Penitentiary; annually, tours generate about one million dollars in revenue. When it comes to ticket prices, the less popular tours charge anywhere around fifteen dollars while the most popular charge on the upside of fifty dollars, sometimes even more!
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Although the haunted tourism industry is in it for the money, sometimes the money goes to a good cause. Over 80 percent of the haunted attractions nationwide are either operated by a charity or they help benefit a charity of some sort. According to the America Haunts website, tens of millions of dollars made from haunted attractions benefit charities across the United States.
Some of the common places the money ends up include, but is not limited to, church groups, fire departments, the Boys and Girls Club, and Children’s Miracle Network.
Some of the common places the money ends up include, but is not limited to, church groups, fire departments, the Boys and Girls Club, and Children’s Miracle Network.