Millennials, Spirituality and Tourism

Sandeep Kumar Walia, Aruditya Jasrotia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000471267
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This book offers a conversant and comprehensive overview of the themes and concepts in spiritual tourism and Millennial tourists. Providing interdisciplinary insights from leading international researchers and academicians, this makes a critical contribution to the knowledge around spiritual tourism.

Organized into four parts, the edited book provides modern and cutting-edge perspectives on important topics like linkages between spirituality and tourism, the predicament of spirituality in tourism among Millennials, anthropological views on spirituality, the work-life-balance, marketing of spiritual tourism destinations and the issues, threats and prospects of spiritual tourism in the emerging era. Part I introduces core concepts, theories on spiritual tourism and links it with the Millennial world. Part II explores the inclinations of millennials towards spirituality and their travel motivations, experiences, behaviours with special reference to spirituality. In Part III, on holistic tourism, the role of digitization in spiritual tourism adoption, marketing and management perspectives with special reference to Millennials are discussed. Part IV examines the issues, threats, policies and practices linked with spiritual tourism. This part also aims to explore the future challenges, opportunities for spiritual tourism development and to propose research-based solutions. Overall, the book will be a suitable means of getting insight into the minds of the diverse, experimental and open-minded generation of millennials.

This book will fill the gap of research on spiritual tourism. As an edited book, it will add on new research and knowledge base with high quality contributions from researchers and practitioners interested in tourism management, hospitality management, business studies regional development and destination management.

Part I Spiritual tourism Pathway to connect body, mind, and soul

DOI: 10.4324/9781003170631-1

The book opens with Part I, which introduces the reader to the concepts of spirituality and tourism. It contains four chapters, which illustrate the conceptual and theoretical base of spirituality and its associated linkages from tourism perspectives. It further elaborates on the different conceptual models and theoretical backgrounds of spiritual tourism and the influence of spirituality on the Millennial generation. This part also aims to theorize the tourism terminology in spirituality among Millennials, the predicament of spirituality in tourism among Millennials and an anthropological view of spiritual tourism in the Millennial world. The objective of this part is to provide readers with insights into the minds of Millennials and how this new generation is embracing new ways of finding peace and solace in this fast-moving world.

The first chapter, titled “Spirituality and Tourism: Defining the linkages from literature”, written by Kevser Çınar and Seda Yetimoglu, provides an updated literature review of this important topic, presenting spirituality from the point of view of the tourism industry and individuals involved in many activities. Another focus of this research is to clarify the notion that spirituality in tourism is not just composed of religious tourism, journey or faith. Although they are used interchangeably, it is aimed to raise awareness that each of them is different at certain points.

Chapter 2, “The Quest For Exploring Self: Generation Z and Spiritual Tourism In India”, written by Shaheema Hameed and Ankur Joshi, discussed that, along with the spiritual element which the Millennial craves, spiritual tourism in India is a niche part in the tourism industry. This chapter stressed that in the post-COVID world, tourism will be the one of the most affected sectors; however, this will be only in the short term and everything is expected to be normal in due course.

Similarly, Chapter 3, “Influence of Spirituality on Generation Y and Z Working in the Tourism & Hospitality Industry” by Hasibe Yazıt, draws on the perspectives of earlier conceptual papers to establish theoretical and practical gaps that need to be filled about this issue. This chapter aims to identify the influence of spirituality on Generations Y and Z working in the tourism and hospitality industry. Today’s human being seeks something beyond materiality in his quest to give meaning to his life, because, despite the use of the most advanced and modern technologies, the sense of monotony and discontent with life in his daily life leads him to find a way out of the crisis in which he finds himself.

Moving ahead, Chapter 4, “Millennials and spiritual journeys: the ways of Saint James in Northern interior Portugal as a contemporary pilgrimage”, written by Pedro Azevedo, adopts the designation of tourist-pilgrim because it unites the concepts of tourist and pilgrim. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the importance of the Ways as a pilgrimage route and that it is increasingly visited by tourists and pilgrims, especially young people, namely Millennials.

1 Spirituality and tourism Defining the linkages from literature

Seda Yetimoğlu and Kevser Çınar

DOI: 10.4324/9781003170631-2

1.1 Introduction

Discovering and achieving the meaning of life is one of the main goals of human creation. Whenever a person feels a void inside, their main problem is the absence of spirituality. Factors such as historical events, technological innovations, global socio-cultural changes, economic changes, terrorism, natural disasters, and epidemics that have ravaged the world over the past year have caused people to experience both moral and material pressures. These events have not only have changed the daily state of affairs; but they also have disrupted the rhythms of life, a sense of loss regarding both time and place, corruption of culture and social alienation, the collapse of lifestyles, increasing risk, personal insecurity and ambiguous life changes and a trend toward increased skepticism (Beck, 1992). Therefore, people want to move away from the factors that are having a negative impact on their spirituality. This may prove to be a solution to meet the psychological and social challenges arising from contemporary lifestyles (Marjani & Pourjam, 2016:101).

At this point, tourism emerges as the most important sector to meet the needs of these people. The tourism industry provides the opportunity to meet the need for both spiritual relaxation and an opportunity for people to rest physically. The phenomenon of tourism has always been seen as a process whereby people renew themselves, as well as relaxing, educating themselves and becoming more tolerant (Ryan, 1997). According to Seaton and Bennett (1996), tourism motivation is more about mental than physical refreshment. Fosarelli (2002:207) explains the concept of spirituality in tourism as “paying attention to people’s emotional and spiritual lives in addition to physical care and looking for new ways to make themselves healthier”.

Research studies suggest that travel reinforces one of the most fundamental and effective components in the development of one’s spiritual intelligence which helps it to comprehend spirituality in his own life. Lloyd (1998) states that the increase in spirituality motivated by travel has been a significant driver in the development of modern-age tourism. For people seeking calmness in life, travel – considered in its broader perspective – has been an important event with spirituality coming to the forefront (Heelas & Woodhead, 2005). These people are generally the tourists who seek out religious or spiritual settings for the purpose of fulfilling their desire to travel, either in whole or in part, and to have some form of religious or spiritual experience.

The sense of meaning and inner integrity of these journeys, embedded identity and ritual experience can lead to the attainment of spiritual benefits and spiritual satisfaction. It can be argued that religious and spiritually motivated travel to a sacred place, or one with considerable spiritual significance, is always important; individuals have undertaken missions for thousands of years to worship the Gods or fulfill personal religious responsibilities. The opportunity that contemplative journeys provide to discover inner solace, purpose, clarity, or redemption has propelled travellers to launch transformative voyages throughout the ages. This travel not only helps the pursuit of the knowledge, connection and understanding of other cultures and religions, but also goes much deeper, gain philosophical experience and enhance the pursuit of spirituality.

This research provides an updated literature review of this important topic, presenting spirituality from the point of view of the tourism industry and individuals involved in many activities. Another focus of the current research is to clarify that the issue of spirituality in tourism is not just composed of religious tourism, journey or faith. Although they are used interchangeably, its intention is to raise awareness that each of them is different at certain points. From another point of view there is as yet undiscovered spiritual value hidden at many points on the earth. Although there are substantial tourist flows to these destinations, there are few studies that will bring these values to the forefront and bring them to the literature. Therefore, a literature review of the concepts related to the subject has been included in as far as it deals with them in terms of general concepts of spiritualism and in the position of the tourism industry.

1.2 The Conceptual framework of spirituality

The word ‘spirit’ in English is a word that derives from the Latin word “spiritus”, meaning ‘soul (psyche), courage, breath of life’ (Principe, 1983) and vigor, strength’, which is often confused with different concepts or sometimes used interchangeably. In many sources, the word ‘spirit’ generally refers to a person’s soul. Two different opinions have been made about spirituality. The first is the connotation that human existence exists in the universe and the desire to find its purpose. The other is faith in God’s domination that controls the entire universe (Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005). Marcoen (1994:527) has shown a similar approach to this and he defended spirituality as a relationship with something greater than internality, arguing that it was associated with either a religious dimension or an unknown experience (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Conceptual map of spirituality.

Although there are very different definitions made about spirituality, each of them emphasized different points of the concept. The most common and early definition of spirituality is an individual’s experience of inner peace or changing life behaviour. A spiritual follower seeks out experiences that make them blissful and peaceful, at the end of the duration, an encounter with ‘the other’ that is greater than one’s individual self. The term ‘the other’ doesn’t delineate with religious terms. It can be something natural or supernatural, objective or subjective. Spiritual coincidence is not something deliberate. On the contrary, this brings meanings to people’ lives. This meaning is deep, detailed, abstract, powerful, unidentifiable and sincere (Kasim, 2016:118).

It has been remarked that the experience of being involved or in contact with an “other” that transcends one’s individual sense of self gives one’s life a deeper meaning than the intellectual level. Things should be seen in a distinctive light. The feelings of being overpowered by a powerful and enjoyable experience. According to Moal-Ulvoas and Taylor (2014), spirituality has a meaning with life, and define it as “individual construction of the meaning of one’s life, the dimensions of which are the inner self, alterity (other humans and nature) and the sacred”. Spirituality actually includes the acceptance of a feeling, sense or belief and idea which is something greater than ourselves. The term ‘spirituality’ includes discovering some universal subjects, such as love, wisdom, truth, compassion, altruism and life after death, and with the knowledge which some people, such as the saints and the holy ones, obtained and showed greater and higher levels of progress than the ordinary people. Spirituality is a broad concept with many units in terms of many perspectives.

O’Brien (2003) defined spirituality as an exact attendance in life, stated for awareness and attention to metaphysics, a peerless and connective principle in the universe. Although spirituality is confused with formal faith or religious systems, it is actually a universal phenomenon and not limited to the others. Religion is used and ritualized for formal belief events and fulfilled by a certain group of people. Although all religions emphasise spiritualism as being a part of faith, you can be spiritual without being religious (Delgado, 2005:158). Laukhof & Werner (1998:62) have expressed spirituality as “a personal and individual value system about the way people approach life” and this phenomenon varies from person to person by seeking their personal aims and meaning throughout life.

1.3 The characteristics of spirituality and how it differs from religion

Various views are available over the nature of any relationship between spirituality and religion. Spirituality is something which is often debated and commonly misunderstood. It is considered to be of an equal value as religious activities and events, or to use the terms interchangeably (Gorsuch & Walker, 2006; Piedmont, 2001), but the other part of the people believe the reverse. Hill et al. (2000) note that, according to some people, spirituality is included within religion; for the others, religion is regarded as a dimension of spirituality (Nolan & Crawford, 1997). In many research studies the two terms (spirituality and religion) are separated into explicit concepts. Hill and Pargament (2003) state that the distinctness between the concepts is that ‘religion’ is the total of the beliefs and implementations related to religious tradition. Koenig (2008:11) defines ‘religion’ as:

A system of beliefs and observed by a community, supported by rituals that acknowledge, worship, communicate with, or approach the Sacred, the Divine, God (in Western cultures), or Ultimate Truth, Reality, or Nirvana (in Eastern cultures).

On the other hand, spirituality is the focus of the meaning (Pulchalski et al., 2009:887) and is defined as:

The aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred.

Spirituality is an ‘innate human characteristic’ and the human spirit is ‘human consciousness, a c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Part I: Spiritual tourism: Pathway to connect body, mind, and soul
• Part II: Youngsters’ inclination towards spirituality
• Part III: Holistic tourism: A Journey to the self
• Part IV: The new age tourism: Tourism’s new face
• Index