Spiritual tourism: Entrée to the Special Issue

This Special Issue of Tourism Management Perspectives is drawn from the public symposium Spiritual Tourism: Transformative and Socially Engaged or Negligible? Convened on Thursday 19 November, the symposium was hosted by the Australia and International Tourism Research Unit (AITRU) at Monash University, Melbourne Australia. Mr. Ben Bowler, CEO and founder of World Weavers, leading practitioners of spiritual tourism and creator of Monk for a Month was a key participant. The phenomenon of spiritual tourism has garnered increasing attention with the growth in travel specifically for spiritual purposes and motivated by either religious or secular, non-religious motives (Norman, 2011). According to Alex Norman (2012, p. 20), “spiritual tourism has been proposed as a phenomenon in leisured travel” and “defined as tourism characterised by a self-conscious project of spiritual betterment”, while Marco Robledo (2015, p. 72) posits that “spiritual tourism is much more than religious journeys”. As reflected in this symposium, the academic discourse on spiritual tourism is often underlined by travel from the wealthy countries of the developed world in order to pursue personal growth and perceived as “contributory to meaning and identity, and/or beneficial for the individual’s health and wellbeing” (Norman, 2012, p. 21). Religions firmly rooted in the East, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism as well as wellness activities such as the practice of yoga, Ayurveda, meditation etc., have tended to underpin the trade in spiritual tourism. However, spiritual tourism has also a long history in the West with its major destinations in the Middle East (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and Europe (The Camino in Spain and the Magdalene destinations in Southern France). Consequently the growing desire for spiritual experiences raises a multitude of practical, theoretical, moral and ethical questions. Therefore it is anticipated that papers in this special issue will confront and interrogate the range of perspectives, contestations and problematics concerning spiritual tourism around the globe. What are the central tenets of spiritual tourism? What are the transformative effects on participants and hosts? To what extent does spiritual tourism impact the socioeconomic contexts of hosts? And to what extent does spiritual tourism lead to long-term reciprocal exchanges between participants and hosts? Papers that directly address the aforementioned and a host of other questions cross-examining the pros and cons of spiritual tourism are sought

Tourism and hospitality management

Purpose – The growth of non-materialistic impulses among people around the world has led to the emergence of a special category of tourism that can be termed ‘spiritual tourism’. This article presents an attempt to provide a conceptual model for spiritual tourism drawing from the literature on spirituality, religion, and tourism. Design/ Approach – As this study intends to build a bridge between spirituality and tourism, the authors reviewed various articles and adopted the Spiritual Intelligence Model devised by Hanefar, Sa’ari, and Siraj (2016) to build a conceptual model of spiritual tourism. Methodology – Content analysis was used to arrange more than forty dimensions of spiritual tourism from the chosen articles. These dimensions were coded and mapped against the Spiritual Intelligence Model. Findings – The emergent dimensions of spiritual tourism showed that tourism offers unique opportunities in guiding human being to gain spiritual development through religion and non-religi...

2021

With a rising number of visitors worldwide, spiritual tourism is becoming more relevant than ever before. Spiritual tourism is defined as travel to discover the goal and significance of one's life, thus, self-experiences are crucial for the transition of a person's mind, body, and soul. Because of this, both the destination chosen and the inspiration and intention of the tourists involved play central roles. However, existing research on spiritual tourism mainly focuses on classification and motivation and explicitly focuses on the demand side. Given the recent increase of participation in spiritually-focused tourism, it is important to accurately grasp the practical ramifications of the practice as a philosophical discourse on the shift from 'religious' to 'spiritual' tourism experiences must be discussed from the perspective of supply. Arguably, the current conceptualisations and classifications of spirituality and religiousness need a correction from an ontological perspective. This study, therefore, explores the primary drivers for spiritual tourism in India, where the existing theorisations of spiritual, religious, and secular-spiritual tourism have been challenged. To understand the primary drivers of spiritual tourism in India, a netnographic study has been deployed. This paper explores relevant findings, which suggest the need for contextualisation of destination characteristics for determining visitors' key motivations. The context here refers to a nation's background, history, and cultural practices, which determine the boundaries of ideologies, spirituality, and religiosity.

Literature & Aesthetics, 2012

Spiritual tourism has been proposed as a phenomenon in leisured travel. It is defined as tourism characterised by a self-conscious project of spiritual betterment. A small number of scholars have commented on it both directly and indirectly, and it is clear from these reports that there are a wide variety of practices in a great many locations around the world. What has not received sufficient scholarly treatment yet is the phenomenological taxonomy of spiritual tourist experiences, in part due to the divergent conceptions of what the term encompasses. By proposing a focused yet malleable frame of reference for the term it is possible to create a taxonomy that is empirically driven and that has application in the broader field of tourism studies. As such, this article argues that spiritual tourist experiences should be roughly grouped into five varietal categories – healing, experimental, quest, retreat, and collective – that often overlap, and which serve to illuminate broader social currents in Western societies.

Tourism Management Perspectives, 2017

The geo-psychological separation from the everyday that is embedded in spiritual travel practices, can be seen as a laboratory in which individuals can examine, consider and practice spirituality in a way that is not always available in daily life. This feature of the tourism experience is arguably the reason for the popularity of spiritual tourism experiences among novices to spirituality-driven endeavours, as well as to those who wish to develop and deepen their ongoing transcendent engagement through and during travel. If spirituality is the goal, traveling seems like an ideal setting within which it can be sought and, sometimes, even found. This Special Issue has identified the emergence of a binary between spiritual tourism performance as intrinsically religious and conversely, as secular practice. Considering secular motivations firstly, it is clear that underlying the many specific drivers are deliberations focused on the self with motives like wellness, adventure or recreation predominant. Conversely, religious motivations for spiritual tourism largely leverage links to religion and are centred on specific drivers that are underlined by religious observance, ritualised practice, reaffirmation of identity and cultural performance.

International Institute for Peace through Tourism, 2007

This oral presentation (Part A) accompanied the PowerPoint presentation (Part B). It discusses the changing concept of spirituality in postmodern society; the decline of allegiance to religious doctrine; the movement toward development of the self and interconnectedness with the earth; the influence of cultural, environmental and ecological consciousness; and the development of and increase in secular pilgrimage. Further, it will look at the impact spiritual capital, gained from the journey, can have in the work, social and family communities of travellers, and how “every traveller is potentially an 'Ambassador for Peace'” (IIPT, 2007) and poverty reduction.

2010

1 The aim of this book is to provide insight into the development and management of sacred journeys, and the varying motivations for undertaking such journeys. The range of topics will include traditional aspects of sacred journeys and pilgrimage, as well as introducing less orthodox applications of theory to the world of sport and beyond, exploring the roles of people, objects and place in sacred journeys. As cultural experience changes and develops, and people search for fulfilment, spiritual meaning can be found in many different activities, in a quest for authenticity, identity and meaning. Tourism facilitates the growth in globalization through enabling encounters between individuals and groups from different cultures and traditions, and religion makes an important contribution to that expansion, through religious and spiritual tourists, as well as the destinations and artefacts they visit, and the activities in which they participate. Whether travellers adhere to a specific fa...

Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology, 2020

Though it has been practiced from ancient times but still the phenomena of Spiritual Tourism is very much complex in the present era as it has not been recognized as a type of separate tourism. The emergent popularity of various spiritual practices of India in the western context has stimulated the visitor from the other part of the world to visit the land of spiritualism (India) for enhancing their self-consciousness. Billions of tourist are crossing the international borders, as they have never travelled so much and have not communicated with these diverse expressions of spirituality, faith and culture. The interaction stimulated by such encounters has the potential to evoke deep spiritual experiences and trans-formative spiritual growth. In a country like India where tourism is in the limelight for the religious pilgrims from many decades, but in the current scenario it is being observed that there is a huge migration of tourists from the western part of the world in terms of ‘Spiritual Tourism’. This Paper emphasizes the emergence of spiritual tourism as there is a dearth of fundamental academic research and it is important to do further research & investigation in the subject. It has also explored the potential growth and suggested the promotional strategies for the development of the Tourism Industry in term of spiritual tourism in India.

Journal of Tourism & Adventure

Everyone in the world is Buddhist because every heart has love, peace, and compassion. This is a study to find out the gap in knowledge between Buddhism and tourism. Buddhism pursues happiness by using knowledge and practice to achieve mental equanimity. In Buddhism, equanimity, or peace of mind, is achieved by detaching oneself from the cycle of craving that produces suffering and travelling broadens horizons and provides patience. It relieves stress and unwinds the mind to develop tolerance and empathy. Travelling helps to discover self. It helps to be open-minded, offers break from routine life, and provides patience. It relieves stress and unwinds the mind. It discovers human strengths and weaknesses. This article examines the social connectivity between Buddhism and tourism in Nepal. Methodologically, it is desk based qualitative study. It is a general review of Buddhism and tourism. The study finds a Buddhist worldview, plays a significant role in shaping attitudes toward Budd...