Hot war tourism: The touristification of unresolved conflict

This article conceptualises hot war tourism as the touristification of unresolved conflict: configurations in which conflict continues materially to shape civilian vulnerability, security and visitor access while conflict-affected places and experiences acquire experiential, representational or market value. A critical integrative review clarifies its boundaries with dark, battlefield, military, risk, recovery and solidarity-oriented tourism and identifies five dimensions: temporal immediacy, spatial proximity, commodification, moral and motivational ambiguity, and governance and responsibility. Ukraine and Syria illustrate contrasting active-war witnessing and recovery–normalisation configurations. A relational framework locates war-related tourism according to the degree of unresolved conflict and the intensity of touristification, while a multi-actor governance framework specifies responsibilities for access, risk disclosure, representation, consent, platform accountability, humanitarian non-interference and escalation. The concept links tourism value production to unresolved harm and provides a basis for analysing when conflict-related visitation requires facilitation, restraint or restriction.