A Report On Religion Tourism Tourism Essay
AbstractLost faith in religion
In today’s society, forces of modernization have caused religion top change in such ways that it has long lost its social significance resulting in making the belief in God a personal instead of an enforced communal option.
Although it is a fact that church attendance has been declining, due to factors such as the ageing memberships of religious orders and more importantly a diminishment of Catholic identity over the last decades, the religious destinations and itineraries have seen an extraordinary massification in the ever increasing number of visitors. In this matter tourism has had a major contribution as it caused religious destinations and itineraries to become internationalised, due to lower transport costs, group excursions and online information. Whereas religious tourism was previously a largely domestic phenomenon, it now attracts different nationalities and different types of believers. These developments have allowed religious destinations and pilgrimage routes to retain the prominent character they enjoyed in the past; however this is not longer based on religious motives but on secular and touristic purposes. Therefore the religious destinations and itineraries have gained great value as tourist products to which authorities devote their full attention to. Also it allows improvements and resulting in substantial benefits for the local communities.
Religious tourism is described by the UNWTO as one of seven types of tourism based on the motivations of the tourist, including three main forms of religious tourism in relation with their dimensions and the destination where they are practised: 1) pilgrimages at destinations whose activity has become mainly touristic; (2) Religious and spiritual gatherings; (3) Itineraries and routes that lead to pilgrimage sites or to religious places, monuments and sanctuaries through rural spaces and territories that are consolidating themselves or are experiencing a revival.
The concept of religious tourism has been further elucidated by Rinschede (1192), as he argues that pilgrimages and other religious journeys as forms of religious tourism are “tied to other types of tourism, perhaps more closely today than ever before and religious tourism is closely connected with holiday and cultural tourism”. Although the distinction between the different types can be transparent, religious tourism varies from the other two in the fact that participants are motivated exclusively or partly for religious reasons. However in the course of the pilgrimage journey other types of tourism, motivations and goals can become more dominant as well as other types of tourism have increasingly included religious aspects. For example, tourist on a beach holiday may also visit holy places and include that as part of their holiday experience.
The rising popularity of pilgrimages as a tourism activity
This information formed the background of an extensive study regarding religious tourism along the Camino Frances, the French route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The challenging assumption that the growing interest much be influence by forces of modernity within Western societies, resulting in the establishment of pilgrimages as a tourism activity, led to a lengthy research which was concluded in May 2007. The selected forces consisted of alienation, secularisation and secularization. The scope of the research was the pilgrimage route along the Camino Frances, or French route, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Over the last years millions of people have visited the city of Santiago de Compostela. Most of them are tourists who arrive in the city by bus or car. However, about 100,000 people are visiting the city as official pilgrims, as they have walked or travelled on horseback at least the last 100 kilometres or biked at least the last 200 kilometres. At their final destination, Santiago de Compostela, they receive the Compostela certificate. Surprisingly, three out of every four Spanish visitors to Santiago are below the age of thirty, and every third Spanish pilgrim is a student. The stereotypical pilgrim – Jacob with a hat,, cloak and staff – is just one of a number of different sorts of people who go on a pilgrimage and the modern pilgrim is more likely to be a youngster wearing jeans.
The Camino Frances is just one of several routes; however the majority of people start on this French route. The route gained its popularity due to the good infrastructure of pilgrims’ accommodation, cultural cities and sites, monasteries, hermitages and churches. Although it is not the longest footpath in the world and, perhaps, not the most beautiful one it is claimed to be the route with the most cultural richness and historical associations. The route is therefore proclaimed the first European Cultural Itinerary by the council of Europe in 1987 and declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993. The growing interest from established organisations, governments and tourists has led to a worldwide popularity as a tourism product in the last 20 years and has led to a growing market of merchandise and literature and a growing interest from the academic field.
The derived theoretical framework of the research, based on an extensive literature study, illustrated that within the pilgrimage-tourism spectrum a growing field of religious tourism is coming into existence, including aspects of both antagonisms. This field also includes pilgrimages, which are said to descend from and influenced by selected forces of modernity. These forces are considered to be prominent push factors for travel motives, causing the rising popularity of religious tourism, especially pilgrimages, as a tourism activity. The theoretical framework was tested through conducting an empirical study among forty Dutch pilgrims who walked, biked or went on horseback along the Camino Frances and on arrival received the Compostela certificate.
The results showed that it can be presumed that the rising popularity is not caused by a growing interest in religiosity among the respondents, the physical challenges and the cultural and historical aspects of the journey as just as important motives. The results furthermore showed that certain forces of modernity do have an influence as a push factor although it is not clear to state to what extent they influence the pilgrimage. The results confirmed that contacts along the journey were established more easily, less complicated and trouble-free in comparison to daily life situations; however they did not lead to and profound friendships after returning home. The contacts nevertheless fulfilled the need for intimacy and closeness during the journey and this might imply that the contacts were temporal and with a short time span.
The results also showed that the immediate earthly gratifications during the journey were considered (more) important then heavenly after-life heavenly rewards amongst the Dutch respondents. This might implicate that the attention towards modern spiritualities, emphasizing the here-and-now versus the traditional life after death rewards, derives from the awareness of personal instead of institutional authority. To conclude, it can be assumed that the niche market of religious, or perhaps, spiritual tourism does not only exist on paper but is also slowly appearing in the mind of the general public. The respondents stated that several tourism activities and pilgrimages journeys have similarities, and that their inter4est in spirituality combined with tourism activities including physical challenges and cultural and historical aspects, is increasing. To conclude, the selected forces of modernity seem to influence the nature and popularity and experience along the pilgrimage journey, although only to a certain extent.
Further research should focus on comprising a more precise definition of religious and/or spiritual tourism in order to make it possible to use the same concepts and measures and to gain a better grasp of its dimensions, forms, management and impact on local communities.
