Pilgrimage travel, a common practice across major religions, has historically exhibited remarkable resilience to global crises, owing to the unwavering conviction of its followers. However, the COVID-19 pandemic marked a significant departure from this trend, disrupting pilgrimage tourism, unlike any event since World War II. Despite extensive research on the pandemic’s impact on tourism, limited attention has been directed towards understanding its specific effects on pilgrimage travel. This study seeks to address this gap by examining the challenges and opportunities faced by pilgrimage tourism suppliers in the aftermath of COVID-19. To obtain a comprehensive global perspective, we collected and analysed one hundred and fifty media articles from thirty countries. The thematic analysis of these articles revealed eight challenges and four opportunities encountered by pilgrimage tourism suppliers during the pandemic. These findings not only highlight the distinctive struggles within the pilgrimage sector but also provide broader insights into the implications for the tourism industry at large. By exploring the intricacies of COVID-19’s impact on pilgrimage tourism, this research contributes valuable knowledge to guide strategies for resilience and recovery in this durable yet vulnerable sector.
The Camino de Santiago is one of the most recognised cultural pilgrimage routes in the world. Notably, its current influence transcends the strictly inspirational and religious aspects, constituting also a socio-economic, cultural, historical, heritage and tourism cornerstone. This paper analyses, from an innovative bibliometric perspective, the influence of the Camino de Santiago on the academic literature in the period from 1980 to the present. For this purpose, two data sources have been used comparatively: manuscripts indexed in Scopus and doctoral theses. The results reveal a growth of its academic relevance in the last decade, especially in indexed publications. The analysis also reflects the leading sources, authors, countries and institutions, as well as their patterns of scientific collaboration, thus being extremely useful to improve both our knowledge of the Camino and its management, preservation and dissemination. The conceptual structure of the academic field, which differs between theses and indexed papers, also confirms the Camino as a crossroads not only of people but also of academic disciplines and scientific perspectives.
Table of contents for Volume 12(i) of International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
Religious tourism is acknowledged as a fast-growing sector within the tourism business, and hospitality services’ role in supporting this growth is important. This study used a quantitative research design to explore the specific function that hospitality services have in promoting religious tourism. Literature study and the distribution of structured research questionnaires to Redemption Resort visitors during monthly programs were the methods adopted for the collection of data. The results show that hospitality services promote religious tourism by providing a safe and comfortable stay, planning religious activities and ceremonies, and providing regional and traditional foods. The study also discusses issues like maintaining cultural authenticity and handling religious diversity that hospitality services must deal with in this situation. The study concludes that hospitality services are crucial to the growth of religious tourism and have the potential to influence the sector’s overall expansion significantly.
This paper focuses on the recent revival of Jewish religious and cultural activities in the coastal town of Trani, in Southern Italy, after several centuries of substantial interruption. The specific events which led to the re-establishment of an institutional Jewish community and the restoration and reclamation of the local synagogues, along with the renewed visibility of the well-preserved Jewish district, of Medieval origins, are unique to this case study. However, at the same time, they reflect similar phenomena of restoration of Jewish sites and revival of Jewish communities in southern and eastern Europe, and beyond. As the case study analysis shows, Jewish-themed tourism has been growing as a consequence of this religious comeback, and it works as a stimulus and magnet for public projects and private investments aimed at further developing (or even capitalising on) this trend, for various purposes. The management of heritage and cultural tourism is closely connected to the complex identity of religious minority groups, where different components tend to produce different visions and practices. Actors, discourses, and reasons behind the management and promotion of Jewish culture will be highlighted and the representations and visions of the various stakeholders and groups involved will be portrayed, with the aim of contributing to the discussion about the complexity of managing minority heritage in tourist destinations.
This study explores and tests the different factors affecting the revisit intentions of visitors to spiritual-cultural tourist destinations in Vietnam. A sample of 460 tourists participated in the study, which used AMOS software to test the relationship between the constructs and evaluate their reliability and validity. The research findings confirm that tourist satisfaction helps mediate the relationship between each emotional factor and visitors’ intentions to revisit spiritual-cultural sites. Four factors influencing tourist satisfaction in Vietnam are: (1) individual learning and research needs; (2) personal preference; (3) perceived value of site; and (4) religious belief. The fi ndings from the tests in variances indicate that the strength of the relationship between visitor satisfaction and revisit intention was different across male and female groups and stronger in female groups. Based on these findings, the paper gives recommendations for destination management organisations about how to better exploit cultural and spiritual tourism products, thus, diversifying tourism products and increasing their perceived value. Such measures will soon expand the spiritual-tourism destination choices of tourists.
Review of: Weir, T.H. & Wijnia, L. (Eds.) (2023) The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe, Bloomsbury Publishing, United Kingdom, 472 pages, £117 (Hardcover), ISBN: 978-1350251380.
This qualitative study investigated the long-lasting effects of an average tour to the Holy Land on travellers of the same faith. Data were collected using written interviews, diary entries, observations and communications at least one year after Protestant travellers returned from their planned trip. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data through the three phases of noting, encoding and then interpreting important aspects. The findings show these faith travellers invested themselves into the trip before, during and after, as part of their committed faith formation. Any faith-based reader would be interested in the results that evidence long-lasting effects for the participants through their actions and behaviours. All participants stated that this trip was a highlight, enhancing their personal connection with God and increasing their involvement in various faith events and activities. Since their return from the trip participants have initiated or contributed to multiple activities such as personal Bible study, storytelling, giving a particular book to others, starting Bible study groups and other personal faith formation behaviours within their work, home and community contexts.
Review of: Bozonelos, D. and Moira. P. (Eds.) (2023) The Politics of Religious Tourism. Published by CABI, Oxfordshire, UK, 2023. Hardback: ISBN-13: 9781800621718, 248 pages - DOI: 10.1079/9781800621732.0000. Price: EUR 115.00 (Hardcover).
The present study investigates the time-use activities of pilgrims at their religious destination. The time diary was used to describe the behaviour of pilgrims who came on a pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad (Iran) in sufficient detail to measure the overall duration and continuous records of activities. According to the findings, pilgrims spend most of their time on necessary and religious activities, respectively. Free time and shopping activities were also among their other activities. Pilgrims were categorised into three clusters: Active Pilgrims, Tourist-Pilgrims, and Non-active or Passive Pilgrims. Active Pilgrims are mostly involved in religious activities, while Tourist-Pilgrims engage more in recreational activities after completing necessary activities. Non-active / Passive Pilgrims mostly spend their time on necessities and personal activities.
Religious festivals represent potential for religious tourism, offering unique cultural and spiritual experiences at destinations. Among the methods for promoting religious festivals as a driver for religious tourism is the use of Photo-based essay tools. While this method is not widely explored in academic research, it holds great promise for tourism and events studies. Photographs have a great value in catching the minds of tourists and creating motivation to travel. This photo essay focuses on the religious ministers at the Christmas celebration in Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Ethiopia. Six photo categories were identified. Each category has its own message about the religious festival ceremony. In Lalibela, more than nine hundred religious ministers are found, their vibrant and unforgettable Christmas celebrations at Lalibela’s rock-hewn churches exemplify the enduring allure of religious festivals and underscore the potential for further research to drive development in religious festival tourism at sacred sites.
In recent years, religious tourism has gained popularity worldwide, with millions of people travelling to different destinations for religious purposes. The United Kingdom has a growing Muslim population, and Islamic religious tourism is no exception. However, little research has been conducted on the pilgrim’s perceptions of Islamic religious tour operators in the United Kingdom. Understanding these perceptions is essential for tour operators to provide better services and attract more customers. The present study aims to contribute to Islamic tourism research by assessing the perceptions of pilgrims toward religious tour operators in the United Kingdom. Employing a snowball sampling technique, this exploratory study surveyed 227 pilgrims who used the services of religious tour operators. The data were analysed in SPSS. The findings indicate that pilgrims in the United Kingdom generally hold a mixed perception towards religious tour operators offering religious journeys such as, Umrah, and Ziyara (pious visitation of sacred places). The pilgrims perceive these operators as profit-oriented enterprises that lack spiritual intentions which are not serving a noble cause. Most pilgrims expressed dissatisfaction with their services, although they are still preferred over government-sponsored schemes. The study provides insights for religious tour operators to improve their services and provide better experiences for pilgrims based on the identified factors in this study.
Visiting holy places is one of the important parts of faith tourism. Travellers visit religious sites not only for worship but also for secular pleasures. This study analysed online reviews to understand how travellers rate holy sites and what experiences they gained after their visit. In this sense, the mosque, which is the place of worship in Islam, was chosen as the holy place, and Tripadvisor, one of the most popular online travel-sharing platforms was used as the sharing platform. As a sample, travellers who visited Suleymaniye mosque in Istanbul, one of Turkey’s most important tourist destinations, were considered suitable. In this regard, online comments (n=524) for Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul between 2019 and 2021 were collected, and the data were analysed using the MAXQDA program. Most of the comments were made in 2019 (69.47%) and a significant portion of the travellers who commented on the mosque were from Europe (38.54%). Through content analysis, five main components / themes were identified: ‘sense of awe’, ‘architectural factors’, ‘spiritual and religious factors’, ‘environmental factors’, and ‘historical factors’. The research confirms previous findings that travellers visiting sacred sites tend to focus on architecture, history, and significant figures. The experiences of travellers visiting Suleymaniye Mosque in the future can be examined empirically and compared with the results of this research.
The conceptualisation of specific holistic tourism components (religious-spiritual-wellness tourism) and their influence on community well-being in contemporary literature appears complex and needs to be more specific. This research traces critical developments in religious-spiritual-wellness tourism and their relationship with community by reviewing published literature in the Scopus database from 1990 to 2020 using bibliometric analysis. The literature review includes three sub-areas: descriptive analysis, reference publication year spectroscopy, and network analysis. In demonstrating the trends and evolution, the study focuses on the social, conceptual, and intellectual structures in religious-spiritual-wellness tourism (RSWT) and community. The key findings indicate that the RSWT community is heterogeneous, and each group of the RSWT community perceives different tourism impacts, requirements, and expectations. The study also reveals a significant relationship between the impacts of external factors like religious factors, political issues, social media, COVID-19 and environmental conditions prevailing in the society and the RSWT community. The diversity and complexity of the RSWT community are recognised as a gap in literature. The present study attempts to enquire how a holistic approach towards the RSWT community should be integrated with other tourism sectors for sustainability in tourism destinations, promoting the community’s quality of life.
Book Review of: Hungarian Catholic Intellectuals in Contemporary Romania: Reforming Apostles by Marc Roscoe Loustau
Understanding the factors contributing to increased perseverance and passion toward long-term goals is an ongoing research challenge. The present study explores the inner drive of individuals to achieve meaningful goals over time, despite setbacks and challenges. The scenario chosen to uncover grit processes was the Way of St. James, a long pilgrimage demanding participants’ perseverance and passion for achieving their goals, despite hardship. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty-one individuals completing the Way of St. James. Thematic analysis indicated three key themes contributing to improve the participants’ perseverance along the walk: behavioural tools (e.g., setting behavioural and time management goals), emotional tools (i.e., enjoyment and learning, belongingness), and cognitive tools (i.e., taking perspective, use of metacognitive knowledge). These findings are consistent with prior research and lifelong learning policies while suggesting that challenges and adversities are unavoidable; however, the more autonomous and open people are to continue learning over their lifespan, the more prepared they will be to cope with changes in the environment and to pursue their meaningful goals.
Book Review of: Pilgrimage in the Christian Balkan World: The Path to Touch the Sacred and Holy, edited by Dorina Dragnea, Emmanouil Ger. Varvounis, Evelyn Reuter, Petko Hristov and Susan Sorek
For a more accurate understanding of religious tourism, it is useful to distinguish between faith-based tourism, spiritual tourism and tourism in religious spaces. The former is characterized by religious faith (and processes of hierophany), the next by spirituality and transcendence experience, while the latter remains in the secular realm of experience. Based on this conceptual grasp, the paper presents the situation in the highly secular Czech Republic and investigates the opinions of service and offer providers in this type of tourism through interviews (n = 3). A comparison with the demand and preferences of tourism participants was collected through an online survey (n = 104). The findings point to a significant and untapped potential and minimal knowledge or interest on the other hand. This highlights the fact that if correctly communicated and presented, tourism in religious places can be something to present to Czech tourism participants and possibly to foreign tourists.
Spiritual tourism has developed significantly through creative activities such as the Bali Spirit Festival in Ubud, Bali. The aim of this paper is to analyse the practice of Bali Spirit Festival and its prospects for supporting tourism sustainability. The research design is descriptive-analytical and based on qualitative data. The data collection was done through in-depth interviews and a study of the literature. The research results reveal that spiritual tourism is oriented toward self-development based on religious values, culture, and nature without being exclusively tied to a specific religion. Further, the principles of spiritual tourism in Bali Spirit Festival can contribute to socio-cultural, environmental, economic and institutional sustainability.
Pilgrimages and other trips with spiritual motivation are one of the first forms of tourism, and today pilgrimage tourism in all its forms has become an important part of the global tourism market. The Arbaeen pilgrimage on foot is a memorable journey on the way to Karbala in Iraq, and most pilgrims, especially Iranians, choose to walk to Karbala from the city of Najaf for this purpose. The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of Iranian pilgrims who participate in the Arbaeen pilgrimage on foot and to explore what the pilgrims themselves say about their experiences, as well as the main dimensions that shape those experiences. To achieve this goal, data collection was conducted through a questionnaire survey and a total of 407 questionnaires were completed by Iranian pilgrims who participated in this procession for the Arbaeen pilgrimage in 2019 - before the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the results of factor analysis among the 5 initial factors (socio-cultural, spiritual, physical, economic, historical), none of the indicators of the economic factor had a place in the prioritisation of the most important and effective dimensions, and thus, 4 main factors (dimensions) shaping the experience of Iranian pilgrims were classified: the first and most important factor is the spiritual factor, which accounts for a significant proportion of the variance; the spiritual factor was followed by the physical, historical, and socio-cultural factors. Accordingly, the conclusion of this research shows that spirituality is the main axis of personal experience for the Arbaeen pilgrimage on foot for Iranian pilgrims and this is indeed a spiritual journey.
