Religious Pilgrimage Routes and Trails

Sustainable Development and Management

Daniel H Olsen, Anna Trono, Daniel H Olsen, Anna Trono

• Publisher: CAB International
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786390295
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

For millennia people have travelled to religious sites for worship, initiatory and leisure purposes. Today there are hundreds, if not thousands, of religious pilgrimage routes and trails around the world that are used by pilgrims as well as tourists. Indeed, many religious pilgrimage routes and trails are today used as themes by tourism marketers in an effort to promote regional economic development.Providing a holistic approach to religious pilgrimage routes and trails, this book: - Addresses important conceptual themes such as sustainable local development, regional economic development, heritage identity and management, and promoting environmentally friendly practices;- Includes global case studies to help transfer theory into good practice;- Calls for further discussion of the importance of better planning, management, and maintenance of these routes and trails, so that the positive benefits of this type of tourism development can be fully realized.An important resource for those interested in religious tourism and pilgrimage, this book is also an invaluable collection for academics and policy-makers within heritage tourism and regional development.

1 Pilgrimage Trails and Routes: The Journey from the Past to the Present

DANIEL H. OLSEN,^1* ANNA TRONO² AND PAUL R. FIDGEON³

¹Brigham Young University, Utah, USA; ²University of Salento, Lecce, Italy; ³University of West London, London, UK

^*Corresponding author: [email protected]

Religion, Pilgrimage and Tourism

Tourism is one of the largest export industries in the world. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO, 2016) estimates that in 2015, there were approximately 1.186 billion international tourist arrivals, garnering US$1.260 trillion in earned tourism receipts. In 2016, international tourist arrivals jumped to 1.235 billion international tourist arrivals, an increase of 3.9% from 2015. This marked the seventh consecutive year that international tourist arrivals had increased since the 2008/09 global economic crisis (UNWTO, 2017). At the end of 2015, tourism accounted for 7% of all exports in goods and services, behind fuels and chemicals (UNWTO, 2016). The increase in the number of international tourists, as well as domestic tourists (an estimated 5–6 billion as of 2015; UNWTO, 2016), has been due to several factors. These factors include advances in transportation technologies, marketing innovations, the rise of social media, trade liberalization, growing middle-class incomes, a reduction of scheduled weekly working hours, and the integration of leisure and tourism with lifestyle choices and schedules. These technological and socio-cultural changes have led to a ‘democratization of travel’, which has allowed people from a wider range of socio-economic classes to have greater access to travel and tourism (Santis, 1978; Teigland, 2000; Urry, 1990).

This democratization of travel has led to a modern revival of pilgrimage, where formerly difficult to access sacred sites have become more accessible, allowing millions of people of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds, including women and children, to visit places that reflect their faith and cultural and spiritual values (Barbato, 2013; Reader, 2014; Rots, 2014). Academic studies and travel media show that in recent decades, there has been an increase in the number of people travelling for religious purposes. As Timothy (2011) notes, religious motivations underlie some of the world’s largest tourist gatherings, such as the Muslim Hajj (2 million) and the Hindu Khumba Mela (20–75 million), let alone the millions of people who visit religious sites every year (Bywater, 1994; Russell, 1999; Jackowski, 2000; McKelvie, 2005; Timothy, 2011, p. 387). In other areas of the religious tourism niche market, missionary travel, faith-based volunteer tourism, retreats, and religious conventions and special events, are now making a stronger economic impact than in the past (Shackley, 2004; Sharpley and Sundaram, 2005; DeTemple, 2006; Wright, 2007, 2008; Vijayanand, 2012; Olsen, 2013).

Increasingly, governments and tourism officials in destinations around the world are incorporating religion, including religious sites and pilgrimage trails, into their tourism development plans to diversify their tourism supply and offerings in an ever-increasing competitive tourism marketplace (Olsen, 2003a). Some world regions, such as Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, already have a ready supply of material and immaterial religious culture at their disposal for tourism development purposes (Nolan and Nolan, 1992; Collins-Kreiner and Kliot, 2000; Fleischer, 2000; Santos, 2002; Richards and Fernandes, 2007; Shinde, 2007; Collins-Kreiner, 2010; Simone-Charteris and Boyd, 2010; Zamani-Farahani and Henderson, 2010; Calò Mariani and Trono, 2017; Ron and Timothy, in press). However, governments and tourism planners in other regions, such as North America, Eastern Europe and Africa, are beginning to take religious tourism seriously, and are searching for ways to engage with this tourism niche market (e.g. Ebron, 1999; Fairer-Wessels, 2007; Gladstone, 2005; Stoykova, 2009; Vorzsak and Gut, 2009; Alecu, 2010; Svoboda et al., 2013; Duda, 2014; Horák et al., 2015; Olsen, 2016), in part because of its economic potential (Vukonić, 1998, 2000, 2002; Olsen, D.H., 2003a, 2013). For example, pilgrimage to and around Saudi Arabia accounts for US$30 billion a year, or 7% of the country’s GDP (Reader, 2014, p. 86), while Fleischer (2000) estimates that money spent on religious souvenirs alone reaches hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

This growing interest in religious tourism is due in part because pilgrimage has long been an important tradition in most cultures and regions of the world (Stopford, 1999; Bauer and Stanish, 2001; Moore, 2003; Price, 2007; McCorriston, 2011; Darvill, 2016). The popularity and importance of pilgrimage to sites of religious or spiritual significance has led to the development of a pilgrimage infrastructure and economy oriented around meeting the basic physical and religious needs of pilgrims, including accommodation, food, guiding services, religious museums, and religious relics and souvenirs (Theilmann, 1987). While much of this infrastructure developed around pilgrimage cities and other important religious sites, such as Rome, Lourdes, Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostela, Mecca, Amritsar, Varanasi, Bodhgaya, Ulaanbaatar, and Bhaktapur, to name a few (see Shahshahānī, 2009; Leppäkari and Griffin, 2017), this same pilgrimage infrastructure was developed along major pilgrimage trails and routes leading to these sacred locations, such as the Kumano Kodo Trail in Japan, the Camino de Santiago, which is comprised of multiple pilgrimage trails throughout Europe, the Via Francigena in Italy, and the Pilgrim’s Way in North Wales (Graham and Murray, 1997; Murray and Graham, 1997; Guichard-Anguis, 2012; Gou and Shibata, 2016, 2017; Lucarno, 2016; Madden, 2016).

Pilgrimage is generally seen as the forerunner of modern tourism (Cohen, 1992; Formanek, 1998; Kark, 2001; see Bremer, 2005, for a dissenting perspective), and therefore, there is a natural link between pilgrimage and tourism (Kaelber, 2006; Reader, 2014) and tourism and pilgrimage infrastructure and attractions. Churches, cathedrals, religious routes and trails, and religious festivals and ceremonies are readily accessible cultural capital with tangible and intangible qualities that do not require much in way of addition or new investment, and are therefore easy to integrate into the tourism marketplace for economic gain. As well, pilgrimage travel to religious sites tends to be consistent regardless of world or regional economic conditions (Singh, 1998; Ward, 2012). While there are concerns by religious authorities regarding the use of religious sites and ceremonies for tourism purposes and the effects of tourism on religious communities (Pfaffenberger, 1983; Cohen, 1998; Henderson, 2003; Olsen, D.H., 2003a, 2011), there are increasing examples of public-religious cooperation regarding integrating religion into tourism development efforts (Tilson, 2005; Tilson and Venkateswaran, 2006; Timothy and Olsen, 2006; Timothy, 2011; Olsen, 2013). This is particularly true in cases where religious groups view tourism and leisure more generally as a vehicle for outreach and evangelization (Vukonić, 2000; Olsen, 2011, 2012, 2016).

Tourism Routes and Trails

Tourism routes are linear tourist attractions that bring together tourism activities and attractions from different destination regions that would independently not have the potential to entice visitors to spend time and money (Briedenhann and Wickens, 2004; Meyer, 2004; Timothy and Boyd, 2006; Lourens, 2007). These routes can be local, regional, national or international in character, can be linear or circulatory, and can link multi-nodal destinations and their natural and cultural elements into one tourism destination region under one or more common themes (Puczkó and Ratz, 2007; Azaryahu and Foote, 2008; Timothy and Boyd, 2015). Examples of different types of themes most commonly used in the development of tourism routes and trails include:

• Religion – linking religious buildings, ceremonies, events, places of pilgrimage;

• Canals and maritime routes – based on coastlines or human-made waterways;

• Culture – focused on places in literature, music, arts, or local crafts;

• Political borders – based on pathways that either follow or crisscross political borders;

• History – featuring architectural attractions, such as castles and government buildings, as well as important historical events;

• Gastronomy – highlighting local, regional, or national foods and beverages;

• Nature – routes including ecotourism, cycling, bird watching, soft and hard adventure tourism;

• Industrial heritage – based on industrial archaeological pasts or transportation corridors such as railway lines;

• Trade – former and present important trade routes; and

• Thermalism – linking hot springs, geysers, and thermal pools.

Linear tourism routes and trails bring about several positive benefits: economic, socio-cultural, and environmental benefits. For example, the creation of tourism routes and trails breaks up tourism development into nodes and linkages where commercial development occurs, and encourages tourists to move into smaller, lesser-developed and visited areas, and spreads tourist stays and expenditures beyond nodal tourist attractions. This in turn generates entrepreneurial opportunities and jobs, enhances community infrastructure, and bolsters struggling economies, particularly in rural or marginal areas (Briedenhann and Wickens, 2004). Formal local and regional development partnerships may be made, linking multi-nodal destinations into one tourism destination region (Olsen, M., 2003b; Meyer, 2004; Lourens, 2007). By linking different destinations together, particularly international destinations, linear tourism routes and trails can lead to increased intercultural interaction and understanding, and allows for the recontextualization of forms and expressions of collective identity among disparate cultural groups (Trono, 2014). This leads to an improved regional image, the development of a sense of place, and the preservation of historical values and the conservation of cultural resources through drawing upon grass-roots community knowledge and expertise (Quieroz, 2010; Timothy and Boyd, 2015; de Pommereau, 2017). Linear tourism routes and trails also channel visitors along corridors or paths as designed by tourism promoters, and therefore concentrate tourists differently than nodal tourism attractions, as tourists are dispersed between attractions rather than within an attraction (Wall, 1997). However, for linear tourism routes and trails to be successful, certain key elements must be in place, including ascertaining a distinct market, identifying key emblematic places of tourist interest along any route, having a consistent story or narrative, having the support of local communities and the tourism industry, and good transport and accommodation infrastructure (Lourens, 2007; Brás et al., 2010).

Because of the benefits listed above, many devel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• CABI Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• PART I: TOURISM AND PILGRIMAGE: THEORIES AND METHODS
• PART II: REGIONAL CASE STUDIES
• PART III: CONCLUSION
• Index
• Back Cover