International Journal of Religious Tourism and
Pilgrimage
Volume 5
Issue 3
Article 2
2017
The Importance of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: reflecting
on definitions, motives and data
Kevin Griffin
Technological University Dublin, kevin.griffin@tudublin.ie
Razaq Raj
Leeds Beckett University, r.raj@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
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Griffin, Kevin and Raj, Razaq (2017) "The Importance of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: reflecting on
definitions, motives and data," International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: Vol. 5: Iss. 3,
Article 2.
doi:https://doi.org/10.21427/D7242Z
Available at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol5/iss3/2
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© International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
ISSN : 2009-7379
Available at: http://arrow.dit.ie/ijrtp/
Volume 5(iii) 2017
Editorial : The Importance of Religious Tourism and
Pilgrimage: reflecting on definitions, motives and data
Dr Kevin A. Griffin
School of Hospitality Management and Tourism, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
kevin.griffin@dit.ie;
Dr Razaq Raj
Leeds Business School Leeds Beckett University, UK.
r.raj@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
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.
Key Words: religious tourism, pilgrimage, data, motivations.
Introduction - Religious Tourism
its categorisation as ‘niche’ has limited the growth of
this ‘mass tourism’ product. A broad range of reasons
are presented for the growth in this sector. These are
summarised in Box 1.
In a 2011 National Geographic article, Mann pondered
the complex relationship between the origins of
civilization and religion. While presenting his
discussion, he proposed that from the very beginning
of human settlement, pilgrimage has been a
fundamental element of society:
Most of the world’s great religious centers, past
and present, have been destinations for
pilgrimages - think of the Vatican, Mecca,
Jerusalem, Bodh Gaya (where Buddha was
enlightened), or Cahokia (the enormous Native
American complex near St. Louis). They are
monuments for spiritual travelers, who often
came great distances, to gawk at and be stirred
by [such sites] . . . What it suggests . . . is that
the human sense of the sacred - and the human
love of a good spectacle - may have given rise
to civilization itself (Mann, 2011:40)
The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is clear in
its enthusiasm for religious tourism, with SecretaryGeneral, Taleb Rifai, suggesting that ‘religious tourism
can be one of the most effective tools to foster
inclusive and sustainable development’. In so doing,
three main benefits of religious tourism are identified:
1. Religious tourism raises awareness of humanity´s
common heritage and provides resources for
preservation.
2. It can contribute to local development.
3. It builds cultural understanding.
However at the same time, the UNWTO highlight what
they call ‘crucial challenges’ which include:
1. The preservation of religious sites and
monuments.
2. Upholding respect for local traditions and
religious practices.
3. The inclusive development of local communities.
(Rifai, 2015)
To this day, travel such as this for ‘spiritual’, linked to
‘spectacle’ motives has remained important, and in few
countries is this more obvious than countries such as
Italy, Israel, India, France and many others. Thus,
religious / faith-based / spiritual tourism / pilgrimage is
a significant and constant element of the tourism
industry. Many industry-focused publications talk of
how religious tourism is a ‘rapidly growing segment
within the tourism industry’, however, this present
paper is based on the understanding that this has
always been a robust element of tourism, and perhaps
Any consideration of religious tourism must work to
maximise these benefits, while simultaneously
ensuring that the challenges are effectively managed.
~ ii ~
Griffin & Raj
The Importance of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: reflecting on definitions, motives and data
Table 1 : Factors influencing Growth in Religious Tourism
Factor
Search for Authenticity
Diversified Product Offering
Increased Number of Travel
Agents
Cheap Flights
Enforced Popularity of Domestic Travel
Search for Unusual
Personal Belief
Cultural Preservation
Growth in Short Breaks
Influence
A drive from consumers for more authentic experience, such as immersing
themselves in the spiritual and cultural traditions associated with specific religions and pilgrimage sites
The emergence of a more diverse tourist product as national tourist boards and
tourism providers seek to extend the traditional tourism season
More travel agents offering religious tourism, pilgrimages and church tours
More and cheaper intra-European flights, and more competitively-priced longhaul flights making travelling easier (particularly for Europeans)
More choosing to travel in their own country due to the perceived threat of
terrorism
A global culture where people seek more unusual holidays or more diversification within a single trip
Religious trips regarded as a way of verifying personal beliefs and spirituality
Recognition that religion and spirituality can help preserve cultures and traditions
Changing work and leisure patterns with growth of short and frequent breaks
Search for Revenue Streams
High media profile given to many of the world’s great pilgrimage sites and
religious shrines
Need to generate revenue to conserve religious and architectural heritage
Sustainable Drive
Global trend in the development of more sustainable tourism products
Expanding Market
A general expansion in the world tourist market
Internet
Widespread use of Internet, online booking and increasingly the use of smart
technology and social media
Media
Derived from various sources including Mintel, 2012 & others
The management of this activity is even more
challenging since, as Raj and Griffin (2015; 2017)
suggest, within ever changing global social and
political landscapes, religion has retained a significant
place as a social movement with complexities of
structure and function which pervade cultures and
traditions.
Definitions and Classifications
Much discussion has taken place between academics
and organisations regarding the definition of this
market segment. Regardless of the terminology, the
inference is that this is a form of tourism driven by a
given faith / set of beliefs. The following UNWTO
definition focuses on the individual ‘tourist’ and their
motivation:
Religion and pilgrimage tourism refers to all
travel outside the usual environment for
religious purposes, excluding travel for
professional purposes (e.g. priests travelling for
work). Attending wedding parties or funerals
are generally classified under the heading of
Visiting Friends and Relatives. However, in
countries where these ceremonies have a strong
religious connotation, it may be more
~ iii ~
appropriate to classify them under the heading
Religion and Pilgrimages (UNWTO, 1995).
In their reports, Mintel try to broaden their definition
of ‘religious tourism’ beyond the motivation of the
individual to emphasize a range of activities
undertaken during the visit:
International travel for the purposes of visiting
sites, routes and festivals of religious
significance, as well as travel where the
primary purpose of visit is to participate in
activities that have religious significance (such
as conferences, conventions, retreats . . .
camps, etc.). It excludes travel to ancient sites
(such as Inca temples and the Pyramids), which
despite having religious significance, are
usually included within the cultural tourism
segment (Mintel, 2012).
Blending these definitions together, removing some of
the contentious exclusions by both organisations, and
reflecting on the broad range of activities they
encompass, produces a typology of religion based /
pilgrimage tourism (see Table 2).
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
Volume 5(iii) 2017
Table 2 : Breadth of Religious Tourism* Products
Traditional Pilgrimage
The word ‘pilgrimage’ suggests that the participant is engaging in a journey to some sacred
place as an act of religious devotion.
Religious Tourism
Visiting religious ‘tourist attractions’ because they are sacred;
Church Tourism
Religious Events
Missionary & Voluntourism
Retreat
Student / Youth Activity
Faith-based Cruises
Religious Routes
Leisure / Fellowship Vacations/ getaways
Spiritual Pilgrimage
Secular Pilgrimage
Visiting houses/sites of prayer and shrines for cultural, historical, and architectural reasons –
not for any religious motivation.
This category encompasses crusades, ’conventions’, rallies, faith-based camps, meetings, and
other religious events such as Holy Week processions or Passion plays. It involves religiously motivated activities. While some are annual occurrences, many ‘events’ are not site / location specific and are hosted in different locations on a regular basis.
This form of travel participation in voluntary work, usually for a church or charity organisation.
Involving the likes of monastery visits and guest-stays – retreats comprise some form of introspective activity of meditation or prayer, usually to (re)connect with God. Retreat facilities
range from Spartan to luxurious.
This sector of religious tourism has been an important element for generations- ranging from
short-term outings to residential ‘camps’, these often involve fun and adventure in addition to
spiritual instruction and personal development.
Recreational cruise tourism (ocean, river or lake based) can be combined with visits to various cultural, historical, religious, natural landscapes and other tourist facilities. This is a
quickly expanding variation of the religious tourism market.
Evolving from the tradition of journeying with a purpose along a pre-defined route to beg for
favors, for forgiveness of wrongdoing, or, some other religious motive, religious trails /
routes have become increasingly important and in recent decades have found expression in
the likes of European Cultural Routes such as the Camino to Santiago or the Via Francigena.
A growing but ill-defined segment of religious tourism is taking part in activities of a nonreligious nature with faith based fellowship / interest groups. Activities can be as diverse as
day trips for theatre, adventure, hiking, education or socialising and are undertaken by every
conceivable combination of participant from youth groups, to retirees, single gender to multigenerational mixed groups
This segment involves visiting a place out of one’s usual environment, with the intention of
spiritual growth - this could be religious, but also includes non-religious, sacred or experiential intentions
Opinions are divided on whether visiting a hero’s grave (Elvis’ Graceland / Jim Morrisson’s
grave in Paris); a site of environmental / human tragedy (Pompeii / Tsunami sites in Indian
Ocean / Ground Zero in New York); a battlefield site (Monte Cassino / Cu Chi tunnels in
Vietnam) or; an ancestral home (diaspora returning to their ethnic place of origin), can be
considered as pilgrimage. However, increasingly, travel which purposely or inadvertently
includes a meaningful, transformative experience, beyond the norm, that impacts an individual’s belief system is being recognised as secular pilgrimage.
* For simplicity, throughout this paper the term ‘religious tourism’ is used, but it is fully recognized that this nomenclature is limited and masks subtle but
significant variances in meaning between the many terms used for related activities.
Pilgrimage Sites
Reflecting on the meaning of pilgrimage, and its
effective management, Di Giovine and Elsner suggest
that:
tourism professionals must appreciate the
multiplicity of heightened meanings, deep-yetconflicting ideologies, and modes of interaction
surrounding pilgrimage sites, which may
conflict with the socioeconomic and political
norms espoused by the tourism industry and
other outside forces (2015:1).
Therefore, managing religious tourism requires a deep
understanding of the experience sought, the site itself
~ iv ~
and the interaction between participant and site. A
broad classification of such sites, suggests that:
Pilgrimage shrines are built around tombs of
holy people . . . historical sites associated with
saints or prophets . . . places of apparition . . .
and environmental formations or built
structures that suggest divine interaction on
earth . . . or to contain effigies of deities who
manifest themselves to pilgrims (Di Giovine
and Elsner, 2015:1).
In 1989, Nolan and Nolan (cited in McGettigan, 2003)
identified a very practical threefold classification of
Christian Pilgrimage sites in Europe (See Table 3).
This is a useful means of examining the nature of a
Griffin & Raj
The Importance of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: reflecting on definitions, motives and data
Table 3 : Classification of Christian Pilgrimage sites in Europe
Places that serve as the goal for pilgrim journeys. These can be:
a) Pilgrim
Shrines
b) Religious
Tourist
Attractions
c) Sites of
Religious
Festivals
Shrines of relatively low value as tourist attractions where the majority of visitors are either
members of religious tour groups or consider themselves to be pilgrims.
Shrines of high value as tourist attractions where tourists tend to outnumber pilgrims
Shrines primarily noted for colourful pilgrimage events where pilgrimages are usually held on an
annual or biannual basis.
Shrines combining touristic importance, pilgrimage festivals, and cultic significance which are
visited throughout the year by large numbers of tourists and pilgrims.
Places, usually ecclesiastical structures which are visited by secularly orientated tourists, recreationists
and religious tour groups. They are not considered to be places of pilgrimage in their own right and
include famous cathedrals and monastic establishments.
Religious festivals and processions which are not thought of as pilgrimage occasions – including Holy
Week and Corpus Christi processions, public Christmas or Easter celebrations etc. These are usually
associated with churches, some of which are important as tourist attractions and historic monuments in
their own right.
Source: Nolan and Nolan, 1989, cited in McGettigan, 2003
tourism, based on sacred and profane motivations.
Many researchers have examined this phenomenon (of
religious tourism), to try and identify why it is that this
expression of faith-linked travel has shown a dramatic
increase in recent years – particularly when there is
evidence of a global trend towards secularisation and a
decline in religious attendance / adherence. It has been
suggested that this is the very reason – while formal
religious practices are less important to the individual,
religious experiences are sought to give a person
meaning and focus. Perhaps these activities even
validate one’s personal existence through the various
religious site, and the related requirements and
demands of the religious tourist.
Taking this approach a little further, Shackley’s
Classification of Sacred Sites (as discussed by Olsen,
2003) is also useful to identify the range of sacred sites
at a global scale (see Table 4).
Motivation
Thus, a variety of activities and practices take place at
a variety of sites, comprising of rituals, pilgrimage and
Table 4 : A Classification of Sacred Sites
Types
Examples
Single nodal feature
Canterbury Cathedral (England), Emerald Buddha (Bangkok), Hagia Sophia (Istanbul)
Archaeological sites
Machu Picchu (Peru), ChichénItzá (Mexico)
Burial sites
Detached temples /
shrines
Catacombs (Rome), Pyramids (Giza)
Whole towns
Shrine/temple complexes
‘Earth energy’ sites
Sacred mountains
Sacred islands
Pilgrimage foci
Secular pilgrimage
Borobudur (Indonesia), AnkgorWat (Cambodia), Amristar (India)
Rome (Italy), Jerusalem (Israel), Assisi (Italy), Varanasi (India), Bethlehem (Palestinian Authority)
Lalibela (Ethiopia), Potala (Tibet), St. Katherine’s Monastery (Egypt)
Nazca lines (Peru), Glastonbury (England)
Uluru (Australia), Mt. Everest (Nepal), Tai Shan (China), Mt. Athos (Greece), Mt. Fuji (Japan),
Mt. Shasta (United States)
Rapa Nui (Chile), Lindisfarne (England), Iona (Scotland), Mont-St-Michel (France)
Makkah (Saudi Arabia), Madinah (Saudi Arabia), Mt. Kailash (Tibet), Santiago de Compostela
(Spain)
Robben Island (South Africa), Goree (Senegal), Holocaust Sites (e.g., Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland)
Source: Shackley (2001: 2)
~v~
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
Volume 5(iii) 2017
Figure 1 Market Profile
(Griffin, Gorman, O’Halloran & Stacey, 2008)
situations experienced over the course of a journey.
This means the travel providers and site managers,
must be acutely aware of this hunger and search for
personal meaning.
Religious sites present a wide variety of offerings
ranging from services, music and other structured
activities of a religious nature, to more secular visitor
facilities such as museums and treasuries located
within their beautiful historic buildings. At many
places, visitors are encouraged to respect the sanctity
of the site – to pause for reflection, light candles and
engage in spiritual practice, while also being
encouraged to climb the bell-tower or gaze in wonder
at the aesthetic beauty of the architecture (often for a
fee). Figure 1 is an attempt (derived from a project
which was exploring the potential for religious sites as
tourism attractions) at summarising the range of
religious tourists. In developing this typology, Griffin
et al. (2008), acknowledge the inherent fallacy of
compartmentalising religious tourists, and thus, the
model must be considered as a flexible and fluid
continuum rather than a ‘classification’ tool. The three
segments which have been identified are: accidental /
general tourists; interested / scholarly tourists and;
fervent tourists. These three groupings form the basis
for segmenting the market and suggest a need to cater
for each segment in a different manner. The value of
~ vi ~
the site to the visitor will be fulfilled through the
satisfaction of their requirements; however the wider
experience needs to be considered in order to create
added value. This wider experience may include
stories, music, food etc associated with the area. To
deliver this experience it is recommended that site and
destination managers need to engage a broad range of
stakeholders in developing, promoting and managing
religious tourism.
While a generation ago academics and practitioners
would have identified pilgrimage activity in strict,
compartmentalised, prescriptive terms, it is now well
accepted that terms and typologies are not mutually
exclusive, with travellers moving seamlessly between
the various classifications. Indeed, it is also understood
that many visitors may drift fluidly between sacred and
secular motivations. Thus, many organised pilgrimages
to Italy visit the Catholic centres of Rome, Florence,
Montecassino, Loreto, Turin, Padua, Venice Assisi or
San Giovanni de Rotondo, but also provide a period of
profane leisure time at the Amalfi or Rimini Coast.
The Religious Traveller
While data on religious tourists are difficult to access,
a Menlo Consulting Group / Globus study is quoted by
authors such as Wright (2012) and McCarthy, (2012)
Griffin & Raj
The Importance of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: reflecting on definitions, motives and data
Table 5 : Estimating the Global Scale of Religious Tourism – Examples of Visits to Special Events
100m – Kumbh Mela 2012-13 - mass Hindu pilgrimage where Hindus gather at the Ganges and river Godavari every 3 years bathing for purification from sin is considered especially efficacious: 2001 – 70m; 2007 – 30m (Hindu) #
30m – Shrine to Ayyappan at Sabarimalai, India (Hindu -estimates for this vary with numbers up to 60 million being claimed) #
20m – Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico (Christian) #
15m - Arba’een, Karbala - visit shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq during rba'een -, Iraq (Muslim) (21m in 2012; c.15m in
2011; c.10-14m in 2010 & 2009; c.9m in 2008). #
13m – Harmandir Sahib / Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) in Amritsar, Punjab (elsewhere cited as 30m) (Sikh) #
10m – Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, Tirupati / Bala-Ji, India (elsewhere cited as 30m) (Hindu) #
10m - Nanputuo Temple , Xiamen, China (Buddhist) #
8m - Annual feast of the Black Nazarene in Manila, Philippines in January 2012 (c.3m in 2008).
8m – Lourdes, France (Christian) #
8m – Western Wall , Jerusalem, Israel (or 6m) (Jewish/Christian) #
6.6m - Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil (elsewhere cited as 10m) (Christian) #
6m – Vrindavan, Braj (elsewhere 500k) (Hindu) #
5m – Dvaraka / Dwarka, Gujarat (Hindu) #
5m – Jasna Gora monastery, Czestochowa, Poland (Roman Catholic) #
4-5 m – Fatima, Portugal (Christian) #
4m - World Youth Day in Manila (every 2 years), Philippines 1995 c.4m attended the closing Mass; c.2.7m - WYD2000 in
Rome; c.1.2m - WYD1997 in Paris; c.1.4. WYD2011 in Madrid; c.1m WYD1987 in Buenos Aires
3m - Qadiriyyah shrine in Kano. #
3m - Bengali gathering, called Bishwa Ijtema (World Gathering) of Tablighi Jamaat which attracts Islamic followers from
around the world in Tongi near Dhaka.
3m – Hajj, Makkah, Saudi Arabia (Islamic) (including 1.8 million from overseas & c.0.75. unregistered pilgrims)
3m - Canterbury Cathedral – St. Thomas Becket (Christian)
2-3m attended the Iglesia ni Cristo's (INC) Grand Evangelical Mission at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, Philippines.
2.1m – Wutai Shan (Daoist) #
2m - Basilica of St. Thérèse, Lisieux (Christian)
2m – Kadhmayn, Baghdad, Iraq (Islamic) #
c.1.5m second largest Tabligh Jamaat - Raiwind, Pakistan. Since 2011 Pakistan divided the Ijtema into two parts and total 1
million People attend the Ijtema.
1.5 million pilgrims – Santiago de Compostela, (180,000 receiving the compostela), Galicia, Spain (Christian) #
1-1.5m Knock, Co. Mayo
1 million Catholics gathered for the mass at Saint Peter's Square, to celebrate John Paul II's beatification on May 1, 2011; c.2.5
million participated in a beatification mass held by Pope John Paul II in Błonia Park, Kraków, Poland and an
estimated 1.25 million people attended a Papal mass by Pope John Paul II in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland on
29 September 1979 - about one third of the population of Ireland.
1m – Montserrat, Spain#
1m - Sanctuary of Our Lady of Licheń in Licheń Stary, Poland (Christian)
1m – Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India (Hindu) #
1m – El Rocio , Cadiz, Spain (Roman Catholic) #
1m – Church of the Holy Sepulchre , Jerusalem (Christian) #
1m - Iasi, Moldavia - Saint Parascheva's Day
800,000 - Kevelaer, Germany
635,000 Amarnath Cave, Kashmir (Hindu) #
500,000+ – Taishan Temple, China (Daoist) #
300,000 – Hua Shan Temple, China (Daoist) #
300,000 – Quingcheng Shan (or Oingcheng Shan), China (Daoist) #
250,000 – Emei Shan, China (Daoist) #
250,000 – Iona, Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland (Christian) #
200,000 – Huzhuan , Shandong, China (Roman Catholic) #
100,000+ – Taizé , Burgundy, France (Christian) #
100,000 – St Bishoy Monastery, Wadi El Natroun (Coptic Christian) #
100,000 – Walsingham Shrine of Our Lady Norfolk, England UKChristian) #
50,000 pilgrims – Malaudi celebrations, Lamu, Kenya (Muslim)
43,000 – Lumbhini, Nepal (Buddhist) #
20-25,000 – Etchmiadzin (Armenian Apostolic Christian) #
20,000 - Croagh Patrick Ireland (Christian)
10,000 – Qufu , Shandong, China (Confucianism) #
8,000 – Lough Derg, Donegal, Ireland (elsewhere 30,000) (Roman Catholic) #
2,500 – St Albans, UK (Christian)#
Table is based primarily on data drawn from the ARC (2014) estimate of world figures (marked with ‘#’) but data are
supplemented with information from a broad range of media and academic research.
~ vii ~
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
Volume 5(iii) 2017
which suggests that in the USA the majority of
religious tourists are well-educated with 60+%
possessing a degree or postgraduate qualification,
50+% have a household income of $75,000+, 70+%
are married and there is interest across a diverse range
of ages , with 1/3 each in the 18-34, 35-54 and 55+
brackets. Another positive for tourism promotion is
that groups of 30-40 people are the mainstay of market.
This demographic of visitor spends more per trip than
the average tourist, and while they are interested in
value, price is rarely their top priority. As a result they
are eager to pay for “eye-catching” extras. Another
feature is that these visitors are not brand loyal, but are
among the most loyal and resilient of all travellers,
being less influenced by financial recessions, or other
ebbs and flows in tourism demand. These travellers
want to travel together to provide fellowship and
community as well as to enrich their lives and their
religion. Destinations which can fulfil these desires, are
well positioned to develop and expand their religious
tourism offering.
Scale
According to Mintel (2005; 2012), as a sector, religious
tourism is not well researched and documented. Few
reliable statistics are available regarding its size and
value within the tourism sector as a whole, mainly
because only a few countries measure tourist arrivals
using a classification that refers to ‘religion’ or
‘pilgrimage’. In most cases, religious tourists are
combined with ‘other leisure’ visitors, with most
European countries classifying inbound tourists into:
Figure 2 : UNWTO recognition for Religious Tourism
and Pilgrimage - Mr Taleb Rifai (Secretary General,
UNWTO) speaking in Portugal, November 2017
leisure / holiday; other leisure; and business /
conference. There are some exceptions, mainly
destinations where religious tourism is highly popular
such as Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Another common problem with the measurement of
religious tourism relates to the inconsistent definitions
of the religious tourist. Many statistics do not clearly
identify whether they include international or domestic
religious tourists. As recently as November 2017, at an
International Conference on Religious Tourism in
Fatima, Portugal, Taleb Rifai, Secretary-General, of
the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) was still
reiterated following:
UNWTO estimates that about 300 to 330
million tourists visit the world´s key religious
sites every year, with approximately six
hundred million national and international
religious voyages in the world.
This number of circa 300 million visitors per year has
been cited by the UNWTO and many other agencies
for the best part of a decade, despite every indicator of
volume suggesting active growth in the sector. One
American source (a number of years ago) estimated
religious tourism to be an $18-billion global industry,
stating that In North America alone, it is estimated at
$10 billion. In addition, one in four North American
travellers are currently interested in “spiritual
vacations.”
An interesting group called ARC (Alliance of
Religions and Conservation) claims that “It is
impossible to get fully accurate figures for the number
of pilgrims to most sites” because in many places,
records are not necessarily kept. However, ARC
estimates that more than 200 million people go on
pilgrimage every year – with the duration of the trip
varying from hours to days, and sometimes pilgrims
“leave home for many months”. It is clearly evident
that this 200m figure is incredibly conservative, since
it only includes numbers visiting 38 of the world’s
largest pilgrimage sites.
Conclusion
As can be seen in the discussion above, Religious
Tourism and Pilgrimage are substantial motives for the
global movement of people. Whether this travel is for
purely religious motives, or whether pilgrimage is
influenced by some secular desires, or even if the
journey is undertaken for entirely profane motives is
not being discussed in this reflection. The main issue
being highlighted here is the breadth and intensity of
this form of religion-linked travel, which goes largely
~ viii ~
Griffin & Raj
The Importance of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: reflecting on definitions, motives and data
unnoticed by national and international tourism
agencies. The 2017 UNWTO religious tourism
conference in Fatima, which was mentioned above
provided a refreshing insight into the growing
recognition of this sector by national and international
agencies, however, the authors set down a challenge to
agencies, organisations, academics and sites to begin
collecting and collating data on their visitors, and on
the experiences they are offering, so that we can begin
to fully understand and appreciate the scale of this
most fascinating forms of travel.
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