What makes a tragedy worth revisiting?

Nearly 50 years after the mass murder-suicide in the settlement known as Jonestown, all that remains in the remote Guyanese jungle is a small clearing. The wooden and zinc structures that once housed about 1,000 members of Peoples Temple, the religious group founded by Jim Jones, have long ago been scavenged or vanished beneath vines.

A single plaque, installed in 2009, marks the site of one of history’s deadliest cult tragedies, where more than 900 people died on Nov. 18, 1978, after Mr. Jones ordered his followers to commit suicide — an event that shocked the world.

After decades of hesitation over how to handle Jonestown’s legacy, which many Guyanese see as a stain on their small South American nation, a new tour allows visitors to confront the traumatic event.

The Jonestown Memorial Tour, operated by a Guyanese company called Wanderlust Adventures GY, offers a $750 trip that includes a flight from the capital, Georgetown, a bumpy hourlong van ride and a night in the nearby mining town of Port Kaituma.

The tour has provoked backlash from Guyanese eager to shed any association with Jonestown, named for Mr. Jones, and from survivors who say commodifying what happened there is lurid.