Mozari – A Spiritual “Field” of Tourism

Tourism is interaction between people and places through movement. The subject of distance in general and perception of distance in particular is very important in the study of tourism especially for religious tourism. Accessibility, connectivity of tourist places is one of the important factors to be considered for sustainability of religious tourism. Religious tourism generates employment for regional development and can enroot the cultural values. It also fosters revenue. The physical surrounding and effect of environment has greatly influenced each religion and so the religious tourism sites. The religious landscape is an expression of cultural landscape as religion is vital part of culture. Such landscapes are called as sacred landscapes or holy places. The content of religious landscape is varied ranging from houses of worship to cemeteries, way side shrines and place name. Moreover, religion contributes layout of settlement. The emphasis explores the potentiality and sustainability of religious tourism in and around Mozari in Amravati district of Maharashtra. It has both on-site and off-site advantage and is one of the important religious tourism locations in Maharashtra. Scenic beauty, accessibility and connectivity and temple clusters are to be considered as tourism resources for Mozari. Keywords : Spiritual, Religious tourism, picnic, pilgrimage, Alpha, gamma, beta and cyclomatic inde

The effect of religious tourism experiences on personal values

For humans, happiness can be a consequence of positive behaviours and regarded as their ultimate goal (Seligman, 2004). Since the late 1990s, happiness has been a prominent topic in the field of positive psychology, which seeks, from a psychological perspective, to understand how to make people happier and help them lead more satisfactory lives (Peterson et al., 2005; Seligman, 2004). According to Authentic Happiness Theory (AHT), developed by positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2004), seeking life satisfaction is a long-lasting life concept. As the understanding of tourism experience has evolved to see it as a life-changing event for profound intra-transformation of a person, religious experience during pilgrimage has been investigated to understand the holistic phenomenon of religious tourism (Andriotis, 2009; Belhassen et al., 2008). The experience of oneself in a sacred place is considered the key element that religious tourists seek during their visits to religious tourism destinations. During their visits to religious sites, they have particular experiences that can be mainly provided in these places through psychological and emotional changes. Moreover, religion has a significant impact on life satisfaction and happiness (Headey et al., 2010). This study applies AHT to religious tourism experiences and extends the model to the emotional aspect. This study aims to investigate the impact of religious tourism experiences on two personal values and focuses on the mediating role of emotional connection between religious tourism experience and personal values. For this study’s empirical analysis, religious tourists who answered that religion was important for their travel in Rome/Vatican City were asked to participate in a survey process. This study proves that religious tourism experiences affect happiness and self-satisfaction / fulfilment

Perspectives of religious tourism in Azerbaijan

The paper deals with the analysis of religious tourism possibilities in Azerbaijan. The potential for Christian travelers is presented. Analysis includes historic background, and contemporary challenges of visiting Christian sacred places in relation to the themes of ancient history of Christianity and heritage maintenance. Religious heritage analysis of ancient Caucasian Albania is introduced. Despite diversification, phenomenon of religious tourism becomes more and more important, it involves people to consume narratives of places, which encapsulate their values. Visiting religious places in Azerbaijan such as Kish and Nij has opportunity of the growth. In order to evaluate perspectives of religious tourism in Azerbaijan SWOT analysis was done. The results of the research could be important not only to scientific community, but also to the policy makers, and tourism practitioners

Historical Perspectives of Shifting Motives for Faith-Based Travel

Throughout pre-history and history, millions of people of many religions and faiths have undertaken pilgrimages. Although ‘the quintessential form of religiously motivated travel is pilgrimage’, the meaning of the practice of pilgrimage has changed over the centuries (Dietz, 2005:27). There are also some consistent Leitmotifs and principles in religious travel. Participants of the New Religious Movements (NRM) travel to Neolithic and other prehistoric sites (such as Malta) for a spiritual experience at such sites, seeking to fulfil needs which the historic churches cannot or no longer can fulfil. (Rountree, 2002:475-496). Many NRMs are based on historical values, past religions or on symbolical or perceived values of the Neolithic past (Hutton, 1990:351-8). Others come to Malta for a traditional pilgrimage or a trip with religious aspects which fit with the traditional aspects of religious Malta, related to the Pauline or Marian cults. The present writer prefers to use the term ‘faith-based tourism’ when it comes to Malta, because everyone arriving to Malta has to use part of the tourism infrastructure. Besides, faith-based tourism is an umbrella term, encompassing pilgrimage, religious travel, tourism with a religious theme and secular pilgrimage, because even in the latter form there are spiritual aspects and elements of faith present

Buhe Festival in Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church for Event Tourism Development: the case of Debre Tabor and its surroundings

Buhe festival is also called Debre Tabor festival. It is one of the most famous intangible cultural heritage events in Ethiopia. It was only a few decades ago that event tourism became established in both the tourism industry and in the research community, so that subsequent growth of this sector can only be described as spectacular. The festival is becoming highly celebrated at Debre Tabor town, Ethiopia. However, its potential, value and opportunities haven’t been studied so far. Thus, the objective of the study is to explore the practices of safeguarding Buhe festival for event tourism development. The study used descriptive research design and employed a qualitative approach. The target population were religious leaders, culture and tourism experts, the local community and the researchers themselves. Data instruments were interviews, observation and secondary data like document analysis. The collected data were analysed through thematic analysis method. Findings revealed that Buhe festival in Debre Tabor is endowed with immense potential in the form of cultural treasures, Debre Tabor Mountain, traditional songs with awesome poems, local traditional costumes, religious ceremonies, ancient history, religious institutions and others. The main values of the festival are socio-cultural, but also economic, creating a good image of the destination and its historical and religious values. Further opportunities include the use of Gafat Industrial villages and the ancient palace of Emperor Yohannes IV, celebrating the birth date of Menelik the Second and his beloved wife, and increased government attention for event tourism. Generally, tourism and its related stakeholders should work together to explore the potentials of the festival, to use the values of the festival and to strength the opportunities it is endowed with for the sake of event tourism development at the study area

The Changing Face of a Religious City: tourism and the perceptional modernisation of a host community

Tourism and its impacts on cultural or religious assets can be contentious issues for some communities, for other communities, however, tourism has been an important part of revenue production. Balancing the outcomes of tourism development is not an easy task particularly for religious sites. Some religious sites have recently become aware of tourism’s positive gains - not so long ago, many religous beliefs did not permit the use of religious values for commercial benefits. In particular, muslims do not allow the selling of religious assets as a form of commercial production. But ‘globalization’ and economic reasons have lead to the transformation of many destinations. So, development of tourism results in new meanings - more than just faith and spirituality based ones - in religious sites. Although religious motivations can limit the residents’ thinking on commercial gains, residents have to evaluate modern global trends. This study aims to show a case of a religious city’s transformation, based on tourism development. Konya is a Central Anatolian religious city, well known for its hosting of Mevlâna and his museum (the English-speaking world knows him simply as Rumi, the greatest Sufi philosopher and theologian). When looking back into the past, because of the religious identity of Konya, residents had been recognised as a conservative community. According to research interviewees’ statements, this conservative vision resulted in tourism being undervalued, even ignored by residents until the late 1990s. In addition to interviews, a questionnaire was developed for measuring residents’ perception and a sample of 269 responses were evaluated. Questionnaire results show that most of the residents have positive perceptions of tourism’s economic and social effects, despite having some drawbacks regarding environmental and social effects. Finally, it can be said, Konya, as a religious İslamic city, has transform into a modern commercial city and the economic and marketing effects of tourism have had a positive role in this process

The Impact of a Sustainable Muslim Model on Community Development with Special Reference to Religious Tourism

This paper uses the descriptive qualitative approach to answer questions about how a Sustainable Muslim Model (SMM) could work as a new approach to developing and sustaining communities. This study embraces the textual analysis method to examine the prevailing published research in the context of sustainability and community development. A number of scholars have approved this textual analysis method as a tool to study religious texts. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview and discuss the status, issues and challenge of community development in tourism. As religious tourism is gaining more ground over time, the need to develop religious tourism sustainably and thus protect tourism communities, has become a priority. Developing and sustaining religious tourism almost always becomes a primary interest and priority for concerned communities. The religious virtues which form the cultural values of Muslim communities affect this crucial issue as they dovetail with the affective domain of sustainability awareness. This study explores the Qur’anic verses and Islamic teachings which urge Muslims to design and build communities in general and religious tourist sites in particular in a highly sustainable way. The results of this study indicate that the SMM can be applicable to Muslim and non-Muslim communities in maintaining sustainability while developing tourism communities. The role of Islamic religious tourism in developing environmental, cultural and economic sustainability is highlighted in a variety of Islamic teachings. The study finds that the appropriateness of the aforementioned teachings are highly relevant to current sustainability issues. This study presents for the first time the Sustainable Muslim Model (SMM) as new approach to deal with community development. The discussion presents a wealth of original research and source material, it illuminates and clarifies the concept of Khairyyah (goodliness / charitable), which, the literature argues, is central to an understanding of how sustainable tourism development can be implemented from an Islamic point of view

Sacral landscape and its influence on the tourism space development in the region (based on the example of Western Pomerania region NW Poland)

Formed through the centuries, cultural landscape of the region includes not only the material realm in the form of numerous historical buildings, monuments and other evidences of local society’s development, but also significant immaterial realm, which manifests itself in the form of spiritual heritage, faith, tradition, customs and language. Interesting, often unique in terms of religious and historical point of view, religious buildings, as well as traditional pilgrimage routes and local shrines are now undeniable qualities, shaping the touristic space of the region. The study of the tourism movement and a detailed valuation analysis of sacred objects showed that the wide ranging cultural tourism (with the significant participation of religious tourism) is a great alternative to still popular, although in many places it is already too saturated, leisure tourism. The historical values and a multitude of interesting, often unique objects with proper promotional activity may contribute to the tourist interest of places that often have been overlooked. The main aim of this article is to show the spatial diversity of the phenomenon of religious tourism and valuation of the landscape in terms of its usefulness as an area of cultural tourism in the region, so far perceived through the prism of seaside leisure tourism. Valuation of facilities and pilgrim routes by way of grading point while enhancing statistical information on tourism, led to create an image (a map) of the spatial diversity of the religious tourism phenomenon and its juxtaposition with other forms of tourism in the region. Thanks to this type of observations, in the future it will be possible to create a model showing the possibilities of alternative forms of tourism (including religious and cultural tourism) to formulate the touristic space. This, for example, will allow to eliminate the problems associated with the seasonality of coastal and leisure tourism, offering a new, often overlooked spaces of interest in the region

Potential of Religious-Cognitive Tourism in Polish Cittaslow Towns

Most of the Polish Cittaslow towns “due to limited accessibility resulting from both their peripheral location (and often underdeveloped public transport network), as well as a lack of adequate tourist facilities, tend to lose, in terms of tourist attractiveness, against the big cities in their vicinity” (Zawadzka 2017c, p. 91). However “silence and calmness – the rarest goods of the modern western world” (Zawadzka 2017c, p. 101) prevailing in these towns, as well as the cultural heritage (numerous monument churches) translate into a t large potential of religious-cognitive tourism. The article fills the gap regarding Polish Cittaslow towns, because much is written about the Cittaslow towns in the context of slow tourism, sustainable tourism and green tourism, while religious-cognitive tourism is barely mentioned and does not appear in scientific studies. The aim of this article is to explore the religious and cognitive areas of the city of Cittaslow by identifying (1) Christian symbols in the coats of arms of cities. (2) significant sacred buildings and (3) towns of Cittaslow through which the Road of Saint Jacob passes. The potential of religious-cognitive tourism in polish Cittaslow towns is determined based on preassigned point values. The study was largely predicated on desk research methods

Religious tourism as a development factor for peripheral areas : the case of the Polish-Czech border

Purpose: This article presents selected results of studies on the impact of religious tourism on the development of peripheral areas on the example of the Polish-Czech border area. The study subject was determining whether religious tourism can be a factor conductive to local development. Approach/Methodology/Design: The study was conducted based on data available in public statistics and analysis of available literature of the subject. The study covered 2 sanctuaries: St. Anne Mountain (Góra Świętej Anny) and Turza Śląska, located in the southern border area of Poland, in the communes of Leśnica and Gorzyce. Findings: Religious tourism is not perceived as a development factor in strategic documents of the studied Communes. Increased border traffic and growing spending by foreigners in the border area point out to the development potential of different forms of business in the Polish-Czech border area. Practical Implications: The study has proven that it is necessary to create an integrated tourist product based on cultural, social and religious values of the region in order for the religious tourism to develop. Originality/Value: Proposed solutions are to contribute to a growth in the quality of services offered to religious tourists in both studied Communes.peer-reviewe