Religious tourism, spiritual tourism, sacred tourism, or faith tourism, [1] is a type of tourism with two main subtypes: pilgrimage, meaning travel for religious or spiritual purposes, and the viewing of religious monuments and artefacts, a branch of sightseeing.
Religious tourism has been characterised in different ways by researchers. Gisbert Rinschede distinguishes these by duration, by group size, and by social structure. [2] Juli Gevorgian proposes two categories that differ in their motivation, namely "pilgrimage tourism" for spiritual reasons or to participate in religious rites, and "church tourism" to view monuments such as cathedrals. [3] [4] The Christian priest Frank Fahey writes that a pilgrim is "always in danger of becoming a tourist", and vice versa since travel always in his view upsets the fixed order of life at home, and identifies eight differences between the two: [5]
| Element | Pilgrimage | Tourism |
|---|---|---|
| Faith | always contains "faith expectancy" | not required |
| Penance | search for wholeness | not required |
| Community | often solitary, but should be open to all | often with friends and family, or a chosen interest group |
| Sacred space | silence to create an internal sacred space | not present |
| Ritual | externalizes the change within | not present |
| Votive offering | leaving behind a part of oneself, letting go, in search of a better life | not present; the travel is the good life |
| Celebration | "victory over self", celebrating to remember | drinking to forget |
| Perseverance | commitment; "pilgrimage is never over" | holidays soon end |
Pilgrimage is spiritually- or religiously motivated travel, sometimes over long distances; it has been practised since antiquity and in several of the world's religions. [6] The world's largest mass religious assemblage takes place in India at the Kumbh Mela, which attracts over 120 million pilgrims. [7] Other major pilgrimages include the annual Hajj to Mecca, required once in a Muslim's life. [8]
Religious sightseeing can be motivated by any of several kinds of interest, such as religion, art, architecture, history, and personal ancestry. [9] [10] People can find holy places interesting and moving, whether they personally are religious or not. Some, such as the churches of Italy, offer fine architecture and major artworks. Portugal, for example, has as its main religious tourism attraction the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima, internationally known by the phenomenon of Marian apparitions. Others are important to world religions: Jerusalem holds a central place in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Others again may be both scenic and important to one religion, like the Way of Saint James in Spain, but have been adopted by non-religious people as a personal challenge and indeed as a journey of self-discovery. Religious tourism in India can take many forms, including yoga tourism; the country has sites important to Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism, as well as magnificent architecture and, for some travellers, the attraction of orientalism. [11] [12] Japan too offers beautiful religious places from Buddhist temples to Shinto shrines. [11]
A category intermediate between pilgrims belonging to a major world religion and pure tourism is the modern concept of secular pilgrimage to places such as the Himalayas felt to be in some way special or even sacred, and where the travel is neither purely pious, nor purely for pleasure, but is to some degree "compromised". [13] [14] For example, New Age believers may travel to such "spiritual hotspots" with the intention of healing themselves and the world. They may practise rituals involving (supposedly) leaving their bodies, possession by spirits (channelling), and recovery of past life memories. [15] The travel is considered by many scholars as transcendental, a life learning process or even a self-realization metaphor. [16] [17] [18]
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life.
A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system. In the spiritual literature of Christianity, the concept of pilgrim and pilgrimage may refer to the experience of life in the world or to the inner path of the spiritual aspirant from a state of wretchedness to a state of beatitude.
The Holy Land is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. Today, the term "Holy Land" usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern states of Israel and Palestine. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Baháʼís regard it as holy.
Tourism in Russia plummeted in 2022. Only 200,100 foreigners visited Russia in 2022, a drop of 96.1% from pre-pandemic/pre-2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine years. Earlier, Russia had seen rapid growth since the late Soviet times, first domestic tourism and then international tourism as well. Russia had formerly been among the most popular tourist destinations in the world, though it fell off that list in 2022. Not including Crimea, the country contains 23 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, while more are on UNESCO's tentative lists.
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A shrine is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated. A shrine at which votive offerings are made is called an altar.
Cultural heritage tourism is a form of non-business travel whereby tourists engage with the heritage, tangible and intangible, moveable and immovable, of a region through activities, experiences, and purchases which facilitate a connection to the people, objects, and places of the past associated with the locations being visited. As opposed to natural heritage tourism, which focuses on visitors' interaction with the unimproved environment of the area being visited, including outdoor sports and recreation, hiking, diving, fishing, and naturalism, and pleasure tourism without any heritage interest, such as indoor recreation, gastronomy, and hospitality without any significant precedent in the history and heritage of the region, cultural heritage tourism can include activities such as tours of immovable cultural sites, such as historic house museums, historic fortifications, human history museums, and library documentary heritage collections, opportunities for purchases of moveable cultural property, such as antiques, antiquarian books, and other works and ephemera associated with the locations being visited, and opportunities for admission to or purchase of intangible heritage experiences associated with the tourism region, including gastronomic heritage and admissions to performances such as theatre, opera, ballet, indigenous dances, and storytelling.
Tourism is the largest industry in Nepal and its largest source of foreign exchange and revenue. Possessing eight of the ten highest mountains in the world, Nepal is a hot spot destination for mountaineers, rock climbers and people seeking adventure. The Hindu and Buddhist heritage of Nepal and its cool weather are also strong attractions.
Ian Campbell Bradley is a British academic, author and broadcaster.
Christian tourism is a subcategory of religious tourism which is geared towards Christians. As one of the largest branches of religious tourism, it is estimated that seven percent of the world's Christians—about 168 million people—are "on the move as pilgrims" each year.
Religion in Colombia is dominated by various branches of Christianity and is an expression of the different influences in the Colombian culture including the Spanish, the Native Amerindian and the Afro-Colombian, among others.
Christianity has a strong tradition of pilgrimages, both to sites relevant to the New Testament narrative and to sites associated with later saints or miracles.
Yātrā, in Indian-origin religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, generally means a pilgrimage to holy places such as confluences of sacred rivers, sacred mountains, places associated with Hindu epics such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and other sacred pilgrimage sites. Visiting a sacred place is believed by the pilgrim to purify the self and bring one closer to the divine. The journey itself is as important as the destination, and the hardships of travel serve as an act of devotion in themselves.
Traditional religions such as the Akan Traditional Religion and Dagbon Traditional Religion are the indigenous religions of Ghana. Islam was the first Abrahamic religion to be introduced in the country between the tenth and 15th centuries, by muslim traders. Later, Christianity was introduced during slavery and colonisation. Today, Christianity is the largest religion in Ghana, with substantial adherents of Islam and traditional faiths. Christianity is mainly in the country's south while Islam is based in the north. Islam gained widespread acceptance in northern Ghana after Yaa Naa Zanjina accepted the faith in the 17th century.
Religion and business have throughout history interacted in ways that relate to and affected one another, as well as influenced sociocultural evolution, political geographies, and labour laws. As businesses expand globally they seek new markets which leads to expanding their corporation's norms and rules to encompass the new locations norms which most often involve religious rules and terms.
Theertham literally refers to water. In Hindu sacred literature, it is referred to as the physical holy water body associated with a temple or deity. As per Hindu religious belief, water is the principal purification mechanism. While external purification is believed to be through a dip in sacred water bodies, internal purification is through truthfulness. Most Hindu temples are associated with bodies of water, which are called Theertham. In Vishnu temples, devotees are offered a few drops of sacred water called Theertham.
Ralf van Bühren is a German art historian, architectural historian, church historian, and theologian. He is professor of art history at the School of Church Communications at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome, and also lecturing at the Pontificia Università Gregoriana. His courses on Sacred Art and Architecture in Rome are open to students of US universities with campus in Rome.
Religious tourism in India is a focus of Narendra Modi's national tourism policy. Uttarakhand has been popular as a religious and adventure tourism hub.
The Cejna Cemayê is a Yazidi festival that takes place annually from 6 October to 13 October, in honor of the Sheikh Adi. It is an important time for cohesion and includes an annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Sheikh Adi in Lalish, along with many important ceremonies throughout the festive days.
Scholars in religious studies take spiritual sketches of travellers' yearning for the transcendent, while sociologists capture glimpses of mixed motives and intrusions of the definitely non-sacred. Even tourism studies help us see past the picture postcard images of the exotic and wondrous and show us vacationers, trekkers, skeptics, seekers and spenders flowing in and out of the channels of belief.
"Tourism to sacred places" or "sacred tourism" allows the flexibility to include hallowed places that are either formally religious or not. Indeed, sites of secular pilgrimage continue to proliferate wherein "pilgrim" is used indistinguishably from "tourist" because of the mixture of secular and sacred at the site itself as well as the diverse motivations of the people who journey there.
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