Religious Tourism Scholarship

What is it about?

The study investigates the knowledge domain and development trends appeared in the scholarly corpus on religious tourism. The most common themes evolving in the religious tourism research field are figured out by conducting keyword and trend analyses using the bibliographic data collected from 988 research articles published in Social Science Citation-indexed journals listed in the Web of Science database between 1992 and 2022. It has been found that the number of publications has increased exponentially. European countries are the major contributors to religious tourism research. Research has mainly clustered around the areas of spiritual experience, identity, cultural heritage, pilgrimage, tourist attitude, behavior, and satisfaction. Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are religions that have received relatively little research attention. Future research should focus on the sustainability of religious tourism sites, mitigating the adverse impact of the commercialization of religious tourism products, and recovering religious tourism activities from the COVID-19 impact.

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Photo by Vladan Raznatovic on Unsplash

Photo by Vladan Raznatovic on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It is widely held that religious tourism cultivates spiritual values in tourists by reshaping their minds. In this context, Aulet & Vidal (2018) highlighted that sacred spaces act as transmitters of heritage values. Likewise, Huang et al. (2020) explored the spiritual values of Buddhist religious tourists by employing content analysis. It was found that religious atmosphere and beliefs strengthen tourists’ affirmative perceptions about sacred sites. Reaching on foot at the Way of St. James is the Catholic custom. The cathedral of Santiago de Compostela has become a sacred site for sharing religious, cultural, and social values (Wiśniewski, 2018). In the context of gendering in the management of religious sites, societal norms restrict the freedom of women to act as priests in traditional Hindu temples (David, 2009). Likewise, Hindu religious customs warn women against entering the famous Lord Kartikeya temple in Pushkar, India. Islamic norms forbid the use of alcohol by Halal tourists (Afifi et al., 2021). It is clear that there is an interplay among social values, norms, customs, and religious tourism.

Perspectives