Ghost hunters: Inside the booming business of paranormal tourism
Once considered fringe and underground, the business of ghost hunting is now big business. And it’s all thanks to our undying curiosity about life after death and the savviness of ‘hauntrepreneurs’. VIDEO: GO ALONG ON A GHOST TOUR
Spooky but true, there’s never been a better time to be in the business of ghosts.
From haunted history walks to full-on paranormal investigations, other-worldly events are popping up around the country as entrepreneurs take advantage of our growing appetitive for a scare.
“Paranormal tourism is definitely booming,” Peta Banks of Australian Paranormal Phenomenon Investigators, who runs ghost tours and investigations at some of western Sydney’s creepiest sites, told The Sunday Telegraph.
“I’ve been operating as a tour guide and ghost hunter since 2011 and have seen a marked increase in attendance.
“We consistently book out at Parramatta Gaol and have healthy numbers at our other locations.”
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Once a fringe activity that peaked at Halloween, now, thanks to pop culture, our undying curiosity about death and the rise of niche tourism, the business of ghosts thrives all year round.
Curious locals and visitors are spending from $25 to $200 for an otherworldly night out ranging from walking tours to paranormal sleepovers with state-of-the art technology.
Minister for Tourism Adam Marshall said visitors were increasingly looking for new ways to explore Sydney, and ghost tours and paranormal experiences were a great way to do it.
“The city is also filled with unnerving stories of bygone days and provides plenty of spooky places to explore for those with a penchant for the paranormal,” Mr Marshall said.
“This type of tourism also provides operators with a unique way to showcase historic and significant sites while keeping visitors on their toes.”
Tourism researcher Carolyn Childs said the growth reflected a worldwide interest in darker experiences.
“It’s a global phenomenon. When Netflix produces a series on Dark Tourism, you know you’re cresting on a trend,” Ms Childs, the CEO of MyTravelResearch.com, said.
“We’re looking for things like enrichment in a holiday, we want to explore the boundaries of things and we want to understand things.”
Ghost tours and hunts deliver on all those fronts, plus they offer bragging rights that have currency in an age of social media.
“Dark tourism stories of every single kind are great stories and as human beings we are storytelling machines. Anything that we can find and create a narrative around, whether it’s for fun or reflection, are always going to be powerful things.”
While no official statistics are kept on paranormal tourism, all operators reported strong growth, with many booked out weeks in advance.
Ghost Tours Australia, which lists all ghost tours around Australia, said they’ve seen a 195 per cent increase in tour inquiries in the past two years.
It a trend that’s led the Q Station, which hosts 15,000 people a year on its ghost tours around Sydney’s North Head, to create a special paranormal program called Para Q to meet demand for darker experiences.
“There is a huge audience of customers looking to go beyond an adrenaline-filled ghost tour and really seek a connection with the spiritual world,” tour supervisor Alison Fleming said.
“We have recently relaunched our Ghostly Sleepover as the Spirit Searching Sleepover, which now includes extensive paranormal investigations and experiments using the latest ghost hunting technology.”
The Para Q program, which will roll out in winter, will include equipment workshops, lectures with experts, and investigations focusing on well-known hauntings at the old quarantine station, which operated from 1828 to the early 1980s.
While paranormal tourism as a niche tourism has been around for centuries, the modern-day form is driven as much by TV shows as it is by superstition, says Pete Clifford, from Blue Mountains Mystery Tours.
“I thought it was going to slow down, we’ve had booms over the past 17 years when shows come out like Haunting Australia,” he said. “But now you’ve got a lot of organisations, groups, and trusts who’ve seen this is working, that this is another way to get a bit of extra money to maintain properties.”
He said capitalising on mysteries can be good for cultural sites and the sector has benefited from partnerships with historic sites that help keep the doors open.
Mr Clifford, an industry veteran, has worked with NPWS properties for 15 years, and last year was approached to run tours at its Hill End sites including Craigmoor House.
“They want people to use the buildings and they want to keep buildings open that otherwise would just get mothballed,” he said. “People can now visit many new sites that would not normally be open to the public after hour’s on a dark tour and view the history in a different way.”
Not only is it an additional revenue to maintain properties, but for smaller towns, it’s a reason for visitors to stay overnight.
And for guests, they get an intimate experience with plenty of thrills and chills.
“We talk about the history that is sometimes frowned upon, we use our six senses to tune into each area, the tours are interactive, so you get to use ghost hunting equipment to enhance your already heightened senses.
“And the night is a private event so there’s no one around to interrupt your experience.”
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