Narrating the Unpleasant: ‘Ugliness’ as a resource in tourism research

This article was written for Uncover magazine – From Global to Ground (10th edition). You can read the full magazine here. 

Author: Konstantina Zerva is Professor of Marketing in the Faculty of Tourism of the University of Girona and Coordinator of the ATLAS Dark Tourism SIG. 

Aesthetics in tourism
The academic study of aesthetics in tourism has long been tied to beauty, the ‘tourist gaze’ and the romanticisation of places. This framework privileges scenic landscapes, pleasant environments, harmonious architecture and attractive service personnel as key drivers of the visitor experience. In this view, beauty is not only a visual preference but also a functional tool associated with outcomes such as customer loyalty, satisfaction, revisit intention and restoration benefits.

Despite ugliness’s constant presence in the real world, tourism literature shows a clear research gap, having focused almost exclusively on positive aesthetics. This has contributed to the devaluation of ugliness, encouraging unnecessary beautification projects and the marginalisation of places with hidden aesthetic value. Research has also tended to overlook ‘borderline experiences’, those nuanced moments between beauty and ugliness, producing a distorted understanding of how people engage with authentic, non-idealised spaces (Nasiri et al., 2024).

The notion of ‘beautified ugliness’ refers to the capacity of aesthetic mediation and cognitive reinterpretation to transform what is conventionally perceived as repulsive into something valuable (Gallent & Andersson, 2007; Speake & Kennedy, 2019). In philosophical aesthetics, authors such as Boileau and Kant argued that artistic form can elevate even disturbing subjects, making them worthy of contemplation and sometimes admiration, as in Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. In tourism planning, this process works through an ‘aesthetic common sense’, whereby attractions linked to decay, rupture or discomfort, such as ruins, graffiti or dark tourism sites, become socially legitimised, normalised and institutionally framed as meaningful experiences (Speake & Kennedy, 2019).

Beauty versus ugliness
The distinction between beauty and ugliness is both philosophical and social. Beauty is traditionally associated with harmony, proportion, perfection and elite ideals, and has often reinforced hierarchy and exclusion. Ugliness, by contrast, refers to what breaks aesthetic norms, embodying chaos, dissonance and marginality, and has often been linked to the vulgar or socially marginalised. While beauty directs the imagination toward harmony, ugliness introduces tension and disruption.

The paradox of ugliness
The paradox of ugliness refers to the way aesthetically negative experiences can be both repulsive and compelling. It helps explain why people may linger in front of disturbing or harsh places such as Comuna 13 in Medellín, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Boston City Hall or Alcatraz. In these cases, attraction arises from the tension between discomfort and interpretation. Drawing on Edmund Burke, while beauty produces pleasure, the very unease associated with the sublime –and, by extension, with forms of ugliness –can itself generate a mediated kind of pleasure when encountered at a safe distance or under conditions of symbolic control. Consequently, ugliness may become memorable and meaningful precisely because it intensifies imaginative engagement, demands cognitive interpretation and transforms discomfort into reflection.

Sources
Gallent, N., & Andersson, J. (2007). Representing England’s rural-urban fringe. Landscape Research, 32(1), 1–21. 

Nasiri, H., Kirillova, K., & Wassler, P. (2024). Beyond beauty: Ugly and borderline tourism aesthetic experiences. Annals of Tourism Research, 105, 103703.

Speake, J., & Kennedy, V. (2019). Changing aesthetics and the affluent elite in urban tourism place making. Tourism Geographies, 1–22.