Religion and spirituality are still among the most common motivations for travel - many major tourism destinations have developed largely as a result of their connections to sacred people, places and events. Providing a comprehensive assessment of the primary issues and concepts related to this intersection of tourism and religion, this revealing book gives a balanced discussion of both the theoretical and applied subjects that destination planners, religious organizations, scholars, and tourism service providers must deal with on a daily basis. Bringing together a distinguished list of contributors, this volume takes a global approach and incorporates substantial empirical cases from Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, New Ageism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and the spiritual philosophies of East Asia. On a conceptual level, it considers, amongst other topics: contested heritage the pilgrim-tourist dichotomy secularization of pilgrimage experiences religious humanism educational aspects of religious tourism commodification of religious icons and services. A vibrant collection of essays, this outstanding book discusses many important practices, paradigms, and problems that are currently being examined and debated. It raises an array of significant and interesting questions and as such is a valuable resource for students, scholars and researchers of tourism, religion and cultural studies.

More than a million tourists visit religious landmarks in San Antonio, Texas, each year, observing and sometimes participating in religious activities there. The San Antonio Missions National Historical Park--managed by the National Park Service, in cooperation with the Catholic Church--is one of hundreds of religious places in America and around the world where tourists have become a familiar presence. In Blessed with Tourists, Thomas S. Bremer explores the intersection of tourism and commerce with religion in American, using the missions and other San Antonio sites as prime examples. Bremer recounts the history of San Antonio, from its Native American roots to its development as a religious center with the growth of the Spanish colonial missions, to the modern transformation of San Antonio into a tourist destination. Employing both ethnographic and historical approaches, Bremer examines the concepts of place, identity, aesthetics, and commercialization, demonstrating numerous ways that modern market forces affect religious communities. By identifying important connections between religious and touristic practices, Bremer establishes San Antonio as a distinctive source for anyone seeking to understand the interplay between the religious and the secular, the traditional and the modern.

Conflicts, Religion and Culture in Tourism highlights the role of religious tourism and pilgrimage as a tool for improving cultural relations. Helping to form culture and society worldwide, faith plays a vital part in cross-cultural conflict resolution and opening dialogue across peoples. This book shows how faith and activism can respond to the common challenges of peace making and coexistence both within and among the world's many traditions. Conflicts, Religion and Culture in Tourism provides a timely assessment of the increasing linkages and interconnections between religious tourism and secular spaces on a global stage. Written from a multidisciplinary perspective, it provides an invaluable resource for those studying and researching religion, tourism and cultural management.

This book reviews tourist motivations for making religious or spiritual journeys, and the management aspects related to them. It explores sacred journeys across both traditional religions such as Christianity and Islam, and newer forms of pilgrimage, faith systems and quasi-religious activities such as sport, music and food. Demonstrating to the reader the intrinsic elements and events that play a crucial role within the destination management process, it provides a timely re-assessment of the increasing interconnections between religion and spirituality as a motivation for travel. Providing researchers and students of tourism, religious studies, anthropology and related subjects with an important review of the topic, this book aims to bridge the ever-widening gap between specialists within the religious, tourism, management and education sectors.

The Routledge Handbook of Religious and Spiritual Tourism provides a robust and comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the literature in this growing sub-field of tourism. This handbook is split into five distinct sections. The first section covers past and present debates regarding definitions, theories, and concepts related to religious and spiritual tourism. Subsequent sections focus on the supply and demand aspects of religious and spiritual tourism markets, and examine issues related to the management side of these markets around the world. Areas under examination include religious theme parks, the UNESCO branding of religious heritage, gender and performance, popular culture, pilgrimage, environmental impacts, and fear and terrorism, among many others. The final section explores emerging and future directions in religious and spiritual tourism, and proposes an agenda for further research. Interdisciplinary in coverage and international in scope through its authorship and content, this will be essential reading for all students, researchers, and academics interested in Tourism, Religion, Cultural Studies, and Heritage Studies.

Modern religious tourism is a main segment of the tourism business. The main goal of religious tourism is aimed at developing human spirituality, spiritual healing, and culture, where a person receives the experience of cooperation, or involvement with the place in which he resides, his people, culture, and religion. This type of tourism is able to play a significant role in the overall goals of society and to promote the establishment of trusting relationships between people of all cultures and religions. Global Development of Religious Tourism is a crucial reference book that contains research on the current religious situation as well as the tourism industry and provides insights on their joint development. It is not possible to study any religious field without understanding the religion itself and its impact on any country’s political and social system. Therefore, the work also examines the impact of religion and tourism on economic and social developments across the world. Highlighting topics that include sanctuary cities, religious tourism management, and religious tourism in regions that span Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more, this book is targeted to managers, executives, planners, and other professionals in the tourism and hospitality industry; government officials; religious leaders; and researchers, academicians, and students working in the fields of tourism management, business management, information and communication sciences, administrative sciences and management, education, and social and political sciences.

This book investigates spiritual tourism - tourism characterised by an intentional search for spiritual benefit - from a contemporary religious studies perspective. Using field research gathered from spiritual tourism locations in Asia and Europe, and utilizing contemporary scholarship on practices concerned with meaning and identity, it explores the phenomena of journeys that are taken for self transformation, tracing the history of transformative ideas in Western cultures of travel, and including the modes in which the travel experience has been communicated. Spiritual Tourism provides an important opportunity to comment on the role of tourism in contemporary conceptions of spirituality and spiritual practice in Western society.