R. Raj

Motivations for religious tourism, pilgrimage, festivals and events

This chapter reassesses theories of motivation, both historical and contemporary, related to religious tourism, pilgrimage, festivals and events, recognizing the act of travel as well as the arrival as part of the complex matrix of travel motivators. The chapter introduces discourses on content theory and process theory, highlighting the work of Maslow and Herzberg to underpin the analysis of motivations for religious tourism and pilgrimage

Religious tourism and pilgrimage management: an international perspective.

From the early part of the 21st Century, religious tourism has seen both economic and education-sector growth on a global scale, but there is relatively limited research exploring the understanding and motivation behind tourists visitation to sacred sites. This book addresses this gap, reviewing the central role of religious tourism and its interrelationships with other aspects of pilgrimage management.This second edition provides practical applications, models and illustrations and looks at both secular and sacred spaces on a global stage. Beginning with a section devoted to the overarching concepts of globalization, sacred sites and diversity, it then reviews the motivations for tourism and experience of religious sites. The second half of the book details ten international case studies from areas such as Africa, Asia and Europe. An invaluable reference for academics, students and practitioners of tourism and religious studies, this is a timely text on the state of faith-based tourism and pilgrimage.

The Importance of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: reflecting on definitions, motives and data

This discussion paper explores the topic of religious tourism and pilgrimage, examining it from a tourism industry perspective, reflecting on definitions, motivations and scale of the ‘product’ as reported at a global level. Mindful of the fact that international records of religious tourism are scant to say the least, this is an attempt to bring together definitions, classifications and data which come from a variety of sources. The paper draws together understandings from different religious traditions, presenting data and motivations on a variety of pilgrimage types. As the paper demonstrates, this ‘niche’ product is indeed enormous, and if industry projections are correct, is set to become an even more important element of international travel and tourism.

Terrorism, Tourism and Religious Travellers

Curiously, while tourism is cited as the world’s largest industry (UNWTO, 2016), it is simultaneously a fragile industry that is highly vulnerable to the impact of the ongoing threat of terrorism. Internationally, terrorism influences the tourist mind-set in a number of ways, in particular it creates fear for travellers and causes economic and social impacts to change the behaviour of people and dissuade them from visiting certain places in the world. Thus, the impact of terrorism has caused tremendous damage to the travel industry. A number of countries which previously depended quite heavily on the tourism industry are suffering in terms of economic development. n nThis paper discusses critical issues related to terrorism, that are faced by travellers to religious and sacred sites. The paper will illustrate the impact of recent terrorism phenomena upon travellers in two ways: first, the potential personal hazards to travellers caused by terrorist incidents; second, the impacts caused by stringent anti-terrorism laws and security measures, to travellers while they are in transit.