Abstract
The article is devoted to the conceptualization of nuclear tourism as an independent field of tourism research that extends beyond the traditional paradigm of dark tourism. The relevance of the study is determined by the absence of a unified scientifically grounded definition of the concept of “nuclear tourism” in both domestic and international literature, as well as by the growing public and academic interest in this phenomenon. Based on a content analysis of scientific publications, search query analysis, and expert interviews (n=5), the main stages in the evolution of the nuclear tourism concept and the motivational orientations of its participants were examined. The findings indicate that the contemporary understanding of nuclear tourism has evolved from a narrow subtype of dark tourism into a multidimensional phenomenon integrating elements of existential, scientific, and educational tourism. The study identified five major groups of tourist motivations: historical attractiveness, existential interest, scientific inquiry, educational purposes, and interest in tourism infrastructure. An authorial definition of nuclear tourism is proposed, and a conceptual model is developed to reveal its place within the system of contemporary tourism science. The results expand the theoretical understanding of nuclear tourism and may be applied in the development of new tourism products and future research on specialized forms of tourism.